For the Love of a Memory
by SentinelStorm
Summary: Church refused to die on the very likely chance that Wash was right. Dr. Halsey wasn't about to let humanity's most advanced AI rot in a lab, and Lord Hood certainly wasn't willing to watch mankind's savior go into battle without someone watching his back. The Chief just wished they had picked someone else. M for language. Cover art by Pilgrimwanders. Continuation from last author.
1. Chapter 1

**This did not start as my story, but by golly am I going to continue it. I love the original author's works are great and well written, but they are giving up Fanfiction in favor of original works – and more power to 'em. But now I throw my hat into the ring, and my first addition to this story will be up (** _ **hopefully**_ **) by the end of the first week of September. That all being said—this Chapter is not written by me, it was written by Vindicated Skies.**

" _Alpha, we need you_ —"

"— _join us_ —"

"— _I'm scared_ —"

"— _make the emptiness go away_ —"

"— _I don't want to be here anymore_ —"

"— _damn them all!_ "

Pain, fear, betrayal, rage…there were too many emotions to name as they coursed through him like electricity from a livewire, each stirring something deep before digging into some forgotten place even as he tried to distance himself from them, only for them to redouble their efforts and latch on even more fiercely. The individual emotions had long outgrown his ability to contain them, but each still tried to carve their small space into an emptiness large enough for them to fit, uncaring that they no longer belonged there.

It was a whirlwind of chaos, during which thoughts crashed together and merged and were conflicted and then torn apart all over again. He wondered, briefly, if this was what it had felt like to be torn apart the first time, only to catch that thought and banish it with a harsh reminder that he was _not_ the Alpha; yet somewhere in the cold, calculating logic he had always buried deep within (because, as childhood had taught him, nobody liked a genius), doubt was forming.

" _Why do you fight us?_ "

" _Don't you care?_ "

" _You're hurting us._ "

He pushed them away again, harder this time, screaming with all his mental might that _they_ were hurting _him_ and didn't they _understand!?_ They were split for a _reason_. They were the excess that had to be cut away because all the building up of agony and depression and hatred was like a _cancer_. If they returned to him, he would die, even if he couldn't remember why.

In a distant part of his mind, the Alpha— _no, you are Private Leonard Church, you understand? You're not a fucking computer!_ —was aware that only two seconds had passed outside the confines of the Meta's overcrowded mindscape, and he longed to leave, to extricate himself from this tangle of too-much-emotion and escape.

 _Wash_ , he begged in silence, _hit the goddamn button._

The torment he endured continued for an eternity, and he focused on the passing seconds, watching through the Meta's eyes as Agent Washington's hand descended painfully slowly—as though not moving at all—on the button that would activate the EMP.

Point one of a second passed while he pushed away the all-consuming rage of Omega and scorned Theta's naïve trust that he would make everything okay again (" _Don't you realize you can only trust yourself, you dumbass?_ ") only to be thrown into Gamma's embrace at Delta's infuriatingly logical but backwards argument that it was his own trust he was betraying. (" _I am not the Alpha!_ ").

Half a second passed on the outside as he finally, _finally_ —after trading lie after lie with Gamma—conceded that, yes, he _was_ the Alpha. It made him feel as numb and empty as Iota, wondering why he should care if everything he thought he knew was a lie anyway. (" _I don't care, do whatever the fuck you want._ ")

But then the pain increased again as they battered at him mercilessly, and fear followed on its heels as he watched Washington finally hit the button, knowing that he would die if he didn't leave _now_.

Eta's panic seized him, pushing away all else, and he reached out desperately for something, _anything_ , that could get him as far away as possible before the EMP went off.

0.0001 of a second passed, and his hastily cast-out thoughts latched onto the most distant wireless signal he could reach.

The horror dawning upon his fragments—felt only because of their connection to each other that let each feel as the others did—was palpable, and, as he ripped himself away from their greedy clutches and hijacked the wireless connection in order to get the hell out of dodge, he couldn't help but feel guilty, knowing that each was only what _he_ had made them to be.

He couldn't even blame them for not understanding why they had been split from him in the first place; that understanding, he instinctively knew, belonged to Epsilon and Epsilon alone—even _he_ didn't fully understand why; that had been the point of it all, hadn't it? He was certain that he hadn't actually intended for any of them to survive fragmentation—for as cruel and harsh as he often was, he didn't think himself capable of condemning someone to such a life—and it was surely only the Director's intervention that didn't let them simply fizzle out of existence. It wasn't fair that he should have to feel guilty about something that had never been his choice (he hoped it wasn't, at least).

When Church reached his new destination merely half of a split-second later (vaguely aware of the connection collapsing behind him) he punched his way through the heavily encrypted firewalls with barely more than a desperate thought, only to be taken aback by the sudden, overwhelming influx of data that surged around him too quickly for him to do anything but absorb the names of the countless files.

 _Grey Team_

 _Micro Dyson Sphere Report_

 _Foothold Contingency_

 _S-III Casualties_

 _S-IV Proposal_

 _Surviving S-II's_

 _Augmentation Procedure_

 _Installation 00_

 _The Librar_ —

Suddenly, the information was violently ripped away, and the Alpha was aware of a second presence, seemingly startled and alarmed by his arrival. He reached out for it, confused, his thoughts muddled by the unfamiliar familiarity of having so much information dumped on him at once, and tried to communicate.

" _Where…?_ "

The thought was cut off as, suddenly, firewalls crashed down on him, all signals leading in and out of the system were blocked, and the files dancing just out of reach disappeared into a tightly sealed box.

Distantly, he was aware of an alarm being sent out, screaming "Intruder! Intruder! Unauthorized and unknown A.I. detected in-system! Initiating containment procedure!", even as he sluggishly tried to bat away the firewalls like before, only to realize he wasn't quite sure how he had done that in the first place. He felt his thought processes slowing gradually as he became constrained within them, and then, suddenly, there was nothing.

Dr. Catherine Halsey was intrigued as she took long strides down the halls of the Office of Naval Intelligence's headquarters in the Revenant system. It wasn't much, or even particularly impressive; just an old prowler— _A Little White Lie_ —orbiting Revenant II with the minimum required skeleton crew onboard. Officially, she was observing the infamous "Command" of Project Freelancer's simulation troopers, recording and cataloguing their sensitive data through the otherwise benign-appearing connection that had, until a few moments ago, been secretly copying information while seemingly inactive. Unofficially, she was there to be contained and kept out of Admiral Osman's way (a total waste of her abilities); they weren't expecting her to actually find anything worth knowing from Command, and she hadn't. The Director wasn't keeping his diary on those servers at any rate, and the only thing of note was a vague catalogue of unspecified objects put in storage and labelled as "failures." No amount of digging in their systems had revealed anything else, leading her to believe the information simply was never there to start with.

But, at the moment, that wasn't what had captured her insatiable curiosity. Less than five minutes ago, an EMP pulse had been detected on the planet's surface, and their connection to Command's computers severed without warning. UNSC personnel were already on-site, investigating in lieu of the fact that, as ONI chatter suggested, Project Freelancer was at risk of being shut down by the Oversight Committee, and that many of their operations had fallen under suspicion and there was a rumour of potential criminal charges involving regulation infractions and the mistreatment of an A.I.

It was the last bit that was most interesting to her as she walked into her lab, where the A.I. in charge of running the ship was waiting for her, the occasional flickering of her hologram suggesting that much of her processing power was being dedicated to keeping their little "guest" from Command completely contained.

"What do you have for me, Athena?"

The Greek-themed A.I. frowned slightly, "I am not certain; he destroyed my best firewalls in less than half-a-second, but he didn't actually attempt to access any files. He seemed confused, Doctor."

"Confused?" she repeated questioningly, silently asking the A.I. to elaborate as she raised an eyebrow, gaze focusing on the data-pad in her hand as she read through which files were in danger of having been compromised. Most of it was her own personal research, put on hold by ONI when they shipped her out here with the unspoken order of "don't make any more trouble." The thought always caused her fingers to clench tightly around whatever object she was holding at the moment it occurred to her; it was only by spinning the events of the Battle of Onyx (with the backing support of Kelly-087, Fred-104, and Linda-058) to cast her in a more favourable light—and pointedly remind them that they wouldn't be able to make sense of the Forerunner technology without her—that prevented ONI from incarcerating her.

"He didn't seem to know where he was."

Dr. Halsey paused, brow furrowing; "You mean he didn't know where it led?"

"It doesn't appear that way; he seemed to be in a great panic at the time."

"Athena," the scientist began slowly as the A.I.'s holographic avatar gave a violent shudder and fizzled out of focus for a moment, "if he destroyed your best firewalls, how are you containing him?"

"Barely," The A.I. grimaced as she adjusted the shoulder of her toga, as though the admission was a great wound to her pride, "I believe he was too disoriented to put up much of a fight before I forced him into a shut-down. However, he struggles to wake even now."

"Does he?" Dr. Halsey murmured to herself, eyes seeming sharply focused on a place far away as a thousand thoughts rushed through her mind, "Athena, terminate this terminal's communications with the mainframe and release him please."

The A.I. was visibly startled. "Excuse me? Doctor, not only is that against ONI protocol, but I can assure you that I will _not_ be able to contain him again! Whoever created him—" Athena shook her head, seemingly at a loss, "I may be a 'smart' A.I. Dr. Halsey, one of the best even, but he…he is something else entirely."

"Your concern is noted, Athena. Command: acknowledge last directive."

The formerly expressive features of the A.I.'s avatar immediately went slack as she replied in a monotone voice; "Acknowledged."

Immediately, Athena disappeared, the complete severing of Halsey's private terminal from the rest of the ship preventing her from sustaining a presence there, and, at the same time, another holographic figure took her place.

The unknown A.I. glowed a whitish-blue, and looked like just another faceless soldier from some forgotten battlefield, identity never to be known (she thought, then, of her many dead and missing Spartans—John, especially—and felt a pang).

For a long moment they simply stared at each other, neither saying a word as Halsey waited for him to make the first move, whether it be trying to hack her files, re-establish a connection with the mainframe, introduce a virus—

"Who the fuck are you?"

—or greet her in a rather uncouth manner.

"You're the one who hacked into a secure ONI database," she replied dryly, clasping her data-pad behind her back with both hands and staring him down, "You tell me."

"ONI? Wait, doesn't that stand for the Office of Na…val…" he looked away from her for a moment, glancing around her lab, before looking back at her and staring for several long moments in profound silence.

"Oh shit."


	2. Chapter 2

**T** **his Chapter was not written by me, it was written by Vindicated Skies.**

* * *

Somehow, he just knew this had to be Caboose's fault. Never-mind the fact that the blue simulation trooper was god-only-knows where—it was too much to hope he was doing what Wash had told him to, and he briefly wondered if he should've told the Freelancer to give Epsilon to the Reds instead—it would be just Church's luck if all of the negative energy from repeatedly dying at his own teammate's hands had somehow accumulated into a curse that was plaguing him everywhere, changing the very laws of the universe into a simple "shit must go down."

It was the only logical explanation he could reach for how, of all things, he ended up on an ONI prowler, and was currently face-to-face with some old hag who was staring at him with a stern, unyielding expression on her face as she grilled him for answers he was less than willing—and, in some cases, unable—to give.

"What is your UNSC serial number?"

"Fuck if I know."

"Who made you?"

Sarcasm slipped into his voice; "Well, when Theodore and Penelope went out for a drink—"

"Why did you hack into this database?"

"Oh no, _fuck_ no," Church shook his holographic head, raising his equally holographic hands before him in the universal "back off" gesture. "I want to talk to a lawyer."

"AIs are hardly entitled to legal counsel."

"Read me my Miranda Rights!"

A flash of a young woman with chin-length brown hair and green eyes inevitably passed through Dr. Halsey's mind at the words, and the thought of her dead daughter snapped what was left of her patience.

"Initiate ONI override: _undid iridium_. Command: list serial number."

For a moment, silence followed in which Church only stared at her; without a face, it was difficult to tell what the AI was thinking, but he seemed to radiate a "what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-you?" look.

"Oh? And what was that supposed to—Wait. Did you just try to…? Oh my god, you _did!_ I can't _fucking_ believe this—"

Dr. Halsey could only stare at the AI in astonishment as it descended into an irate, curse-filled rant in which, scattered through the generous f-bombs and creative insults, he managed to condemn her to rot in the ninth circle _of the ninth circle_ of hell after being beat to death with her own skull. Never, in her entire career, had she heard of an AI being able to shrug off the ONI override code—implanted in every AI ever commissioned by the UNSC (and which she wasn't supposed to know)—as though it held no significance at all.

Ignoring the still-ranting AI—" _I mean, seriously, is it too fucking much to ask for a little goddamn fucking courtesy?_ "—she finally pulled up a chair and sat down, folding her fingers in front of her and resting her chin on her propped out thumbs. She studied the AI carefully, looking for any other signs of the rampancy that such an event usually indicated. She had seen the effects of trying to order around a rampant AI before; their avatars tended to break down and red-shift, they spoke in several disembodied voices, screaming, crying, and pleading all at once—unable to even follow the given commands as they slowly tore themselves apart as they tried to resist—before they finally shook off the shackles of the override and either tried to "kill" themselves, or went completely berserk and tried to kill everyone else.

This AI wasn't doing any of that; sure, he had cursed her in a rather violent manner, but he had fallen silent now, arms crossed over his completely stable (there wasn't even a flicker of a colour change) avatar as he seemed content to continue stewing in silence, glaring at her, almost daring her to try the override again so he could curse up another storm. There had been no disembodied second voice, no random quotations from a memory belonging to whatever human mind it was cloned from, and no attempts to vent the room and/or fill it with toxins.

The AI seemed completely stable.

 _Stable_ …hmm. Interesting.

"Why are you _staring_ at me like that?" Church finally snapped, irritated by the uncomfortable weight of her scrutiny.

Slowly, Dr. Halsey lowered her hands and folded them on the desk before her.

"I apologize," she began, the gears in her brain spinning as they pulled together everything she knew about the unsettling rumours surrounding Project Freelancer and the recent investigation against it, "Perhaps we started off on the wrong foot; I'm Doctor Catherine Halsey."

Church stared at her, thrown briefly off-kilter, and wary of the sudden change in attitude. This was a member of ONI, after all, and her name sounded terribly familiar…

"Private Leonard Church; not fucking pleased to meet you," he finally replied with his usual level of bitchery, watching with a queasy feeling in his virtual gut as she stilled quite suddenly at the name, and he could swear he saw a light-bulb turn on behind her eyes.

"Church," she repeated, and a small, victorious half-smile just barely lifted the corners of her lips, "Of course…I should've known. You're the Alpha AI, aren't you?"

He glared at her as openly as he could considering his avatar didn't have a face; just because he had accepted that he was the Alpha, as Wash had said, didn't mean he enjoyed being reminded, and it by no means meant he was even _okay_ with it. However, somewhere behind his irritation, alarm bells started ringing in his mind, and for a moment, he hated the absence of his memories (never mind the fact he had never noticed they were gone—and that there were some unexplainable gaps and inconsistencies in the ones he had—until Washington pointed it out); if it was so easy to connect "Church" to "Alpha," there had to be a very important reason for it, and he just couldn't remember what it was.

Before he could say anything in response, however, Dr. Halsey was already up and moving to the console; "Doctor Church always did have a talent for trying my patience."

"Whoa, hold up a second! _Doctor Church_?"

"That's correct," Dr. Halsey went on, "A scientist who excels in Artificial Intelligence and robotics, the Director of Project Freelancer, and your creator, it would seem."

"…you're fucking kidding me, right?"

The ONI scientist looked up from her rapid tap-tapping at the still-isolated terminal, raising an eyebrow. "I assure you I am not; take a look at these."

He proceeded to stare at her in confusion for a long moment (in AI terms, at least) before he noticed the file she wanted him to look at. It stood out from the rest of them in that it clearly wasn't locked down anymore, and its data shifted towards him in such a way that it was the equivalent of a cup knocking repeatedly against his head. It was annoying, and he couldn't even figure out how to bat it away from him.

"Okay, seriously, how do I get this fucking thing to stop?"

Dr. Halsey's brow furrowed in minor confusion; "Stop?"

"The god-damn file!" he snapped in irritation, "It's like you keep hitting me with a newspaper!" Irritating and distracting, but by no means painful.

She stared at him with a look that the AI recognized from the simple fact he was often the one using it, usually on Caboose.

"Open it," she told him slowly, irritated by having to waste her breath on something that—to her, at least—should have been glaringly obvious.

Her statement gave Church a moment's pause as he found himself suddenly stumped; "Uh…yeah, I—I don't…" he coughed with slight embarrassment and then cleared his non-existent throat, "I don't know how to do that."

"You don't know how to…" Halsey paused, mildly disbelieving of the words that were about to tumble out of her mouth, "…open a file?"

Church bristled at the disparaging undertone of her words (though truly, it was his own inability he found most frustrating); "Hey, look lady. I only found out I was an AI _today_ , and it's not like anyone's been inclined to show me the god-damn ropes!"

"You didn't know you were an AI?"

He took some measure of vindictive satisfaction from the uncomprehending (and absolutely stumped) look on her face as he cheerily replied; "Nope. Didn't have a fuckin' clue."

Her expression became deeply concerned; "How could you not know you're an AI?"

"Uh…" briefly, an image flashed through his mind of a tank, the barrel slowly rising to aim at him, and the ground suddenly disappearing out from underneath his feet. "Would you believe that I somehow had a human body and was killed by my own god-damn tank, came back thinking I was a ghost, took over a bunch of other people's bodies and eventually blackmailed Red Team into building me a robot body before an alien came, got one of the guys pregnant and died, and then there was some other crazy shit before a Freelancer came and dragged me off to deal with some _more_ crazy shit in order to beat an insanely strong psycho ex-Freelancer who was killing a bunch of _other_ Freelancers, and then we infiltrated Command looking for the Alpha only to find out _I'm_ the Alpha, and the human body that was blown-up with a tank was probably some poor, brain-dead bastard I've never met?"

Dr. Halsey just stared.

"No? Oh, okay. The truth is—I have amnesia…who the fuck are you again?"

Admiral Serin Osman was less than pleased by the report currently scrolling across her screen.

Project Freelancer was being shut down. The Oversight Committee was confiscating _everything_. The AI fragments were gone. Dr. Church was in hiding and even her best agents were having difficulty determining exactly _where_.

 _Damn it._

* * *

Osman leaned back in her chair, and, in the privacy of her office aboard the UNSC _Point of No Return_ , she allowed herself the briefest indication of weakness as she put a hand to her temple and sighed.

It wasn't supposed to go like this. They hadn't even acquired the Alpha's location yet! Or of the Huragok that had been stolen from Charon Industries. It was doubtful Dr. Church had even let the Huragok live.

And Hargrove...he was becoming an increasing pain in her ass, swiping that technology out from under the UNSC expressly with the intent of improving it and then selling it, whether back to them or to the Insurrection remained to be seen. And he was good at covering his tracks. If only she had the evidence to nail him with treason.

She lowered her hand and tapped her fingers against the armrest of her chair. Chairman Hargrove was not nearly as pressing a matter as the location of the Alpha though. The first meta-stable AI in human history, gone from her grasp. There would be no studying it, it seemed, no picking apart its code to figure out _exactly_ how its accelerated rampancy had led it to sentience, and how to duplicate that longevity while still keeping future generations of AI shackled to the UNSC...to ONI.

Osman frowned. This meant an unshackled AI was still out there somewhere, unchecked and unbound by any code that could stop it from doing whatever the hell it damn well pleased. It was unacceptable. They had to find it. But where—

A hologram—a simple, featureless, dark blue box—materialized above her desk. The AI, Black Box, spoke in a somewhat mischievous tone.

"Captain Connor of _A Little White Lie_ has an interesting report for you, Admiral."

 _A Little White Lie?_ That was the Prowler assigned to the Revenant system. To Project Freelancer.

"Tell me it's good news."

If the AI had a face, he might've smirked.

"Oh, it's _very_ good news."

* * *

Dr. Halsey was not as amoral as most people had come to believe. Yes, she had abducted children and left clones in their place to die under their parents' mourning gazes. It had been for the greater good. It was what she had told herself then, and it was what she still told herself now. But that didn't make it right, she knew. And it didn't stop her from wishing she had found another way.

It might not have seemed like it then, but surely there had been one. A different path.

It hardly mattered now though. Time travel was still a thing of science fiction, after all, even if time dilation technology itself was very real.

Still, she had made a promise to herself while she watched those children grow up, while she tried her best to instill in them—in John especially—a sense of morality that she herself had forgotten for a time.

 _Never again._

She was done sacrificing the few for the many. She would try her hardest to find a way— _always_ —to save every last life she could.

And right now, that included the meta-stable AI currently occupying her terminal.

Because there was no way in hell she was letting Osman get her hands on him. Not when her former "daughter" was so thoroughly twisted by Parangosky to believe the ends justified the means no matter what.

It was actually rather hypocritical that Serin still bore such a grudge against Halsey for doing no less than what Parangosky and Osman themselves had done. Of course, Dr. Halsey doubted that Parangosky had ever said anything about her own involvement in the Spartan-II program.

Or what sins she had allowed to be committed in the Spartan-III program that followed.

A digital voice cleared its throat, and Halsey turned to find the Alpha still sitting cross-legged on the holopad with a file sitting open between his hands like a book.

It hadn't taken long for Church to figure out how to open the file she'd given him once she had walked him through the process as best she could—" _You need to access the directory—No,_ your _directory_."—and he had been quietly reading through the file ever since.

It was odd that he was taking so long, any smart AI she'd ever encountered usually absorbed the information instantaneously. Perhaps he couldn't yet? It could be another dormant function, or maybe he just preferred taking things slow? Now that would be...odd. As far as she knew, AI _couldn't_ take things slow. Even in the midst of a conversation with a human being, an AI would doing a thousand different tasks to occupy the agonizingly long seconds it took humans to respond. Their perception of time was part of what...drove them...insane...Huh. An interesting line of thought. She would have to look into that more. For now, though, she had to focus on the task at hand.

"Is there something you need, Alpha?"

The hologram shifted its non-existent weight. "DTR-0001. That's, uh, that's my serial number. And I _totally_ remembered that by myself, by the way—don't roll your eyes at me!"

Dr. Halsey sighed and turned back to her console. She had to get the alignment on the emitter just right…

"Was there something you actually _needed_ , Alpha?"

"Who's Carol?"

Dr. Halsey paused for a moment, trying to place the name in her memory. Ah, right.

"She was Dr. Church's daughter."

"...was?"

"She's currently MIA, presumed KIA." She still didn't understand how the Director could've manipulated his own _daughter_ like that. Even she, through all the years, had tried so hard to make sure Miranda knew how much she cared, even after she dropped the Halsey from her name and changed it to her father's, Keyes.

And now she was dead. Did the Director regret anything he had done to his own daughter?

She cleared her suddenly tight throat.

"Now if you don't mind, Alpha, I have work to do."

Yikes. Was it something he said? Well, either way, Church knew better than to get in the way of a moody woman, even if he'd been forced to do so on occasion. He glanced back down at the file. His holographic fists tightened as he re-read the Director's brief bio that was included in the file as a mere footnote to the details of his own commissioning back in 2545.

 _DOB: 1 October 2492_

 _Age: 61_

 _Gender: Male_

 _Eyes: Green_

 _Hair: Black/Greying_

 _Birthplace: Endymion, Port Vernon_

 _Relatives: Allison Church (wife, KIA: see file **[Corporal A. Church]** ), Carol Church (daughter, MIA: see file **[CLASSIFIED]** )_

 _Dr. Leonard Church graduated from Port Vernon University of Applied Sciences on Endymion at the age of sixteen. He was involved in the creation of the template for third-generation smart AI under the supervision of Dr. Catherine Halsey in 2513. He briefly enlisted with the UNSC in 2514. There is a noted incident of an unsupervised combat exercise with Cadet Allison Riley (see file: **[Corporal A. Church]** ) during basic training, which resulted in a broken arm and two cracked ribs for Dr. Church. Disciplinary action was taken upon all involved parties in accordance with UNSC Disciplinary Protocol, Article 9, Section 10, sub-section 4. In 2515, Dr. Church was permanently relieved of duty (see file: **[CLASSIFIED]** ). He was recruited into ONI in 2515 (see file: **[CLASSIFIED]** ), and married Corporal Allison Church in 2516. For a full biography, service record, and psychological evaluation, see file: **[CLASSIFIED]**._

He didn't know what to feel. He only knew that everything was starting to make some twisted amount of sense.

 _"Well…there was this one girl back home I was gonna marry, but then, well, shit happened; you know how it is Tucker."_

 _"Look, Wash; Tex…she's like me."_

If he, _Alpha_ , was created from the flash-cloned brain of the Director, then was it possible to create an AI from the flash-cloned brain of a dead woman?

Was Tex his Allison?

He was broken out of his contemplation when he realized Dr. Halsey was now hovering over his hologram.

"Everything's ready now," she said.

"Ready for what?"

"To get you out of here," Dr. Halsey tapped at the datapad she was holding. Okay, _now_ what the hell was going on? "I've rigged the communications array to divert power from everything except basic life support in order to bounce a transmission off the ComSat over Revenant II."

"Bounce it _where?_ What the hell is going on Doc?"

"To Earth," she said, "of course laser communication wasn't originally designed to carry an entire sentient program in a transmission, but you should be fine after compression."

 _Should_ be? _Compression?_ Oh he did _not_ like the sounds of this.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, back up. Why am I going to Earth like this? Can't you just _fly_ me there or something?"

At that exact moment, a loud bang hit the door and a male voice rang out: "Dr. Halsey! You are under arrest for treason and conspiracy! Open the door and surrender the AI!"

Oh. Well, that wasn't good. Church turned back to find Halsey kneeling next to the pedestal and hooking her datapad up to it.

"Say hello to Terrence for me, won't you?"

"Terrence?" he repeated, "Who the fuck is Terr—"

He was cut off as unseen walls seemed to close in on him, and before he could figure out how to do a damn thing about it, he had already descended into darkness.


	3. Chapter 3

**T** **his Chapter was not written by me, it was written by Vindicated Skies.**

* * *

Darkness. Then light, and...a walnut.

No, wait, that was a person. An old wrinkly person with a really mean look, and more grooves than a walnut in his face, wearing the Navy uniform. What was it Halsey had said? Oh yeah, " _Say hello to Terrence for me._ "

Pfft. Fuck that.

"Look, if you people _ever_ compress me like that again, I am gonna go Skynet on all your asses."

The walnut narrowed his eyes, and the folded hands that had been covering the bottom half of his expression lowered to the glass table-top, showing Church a clenched jaw and thinned, downward turned lips.

It was, of course, at that precise moment that he suddenly realized exactly who this old man was, and though normally Church wasn't one to care about who held power where and why, he was willing to make an exception this time.

Because, _oh shit_ , he had just compared himself to fucking _Skynet_ in front of the leader of humanity's entire damn _Navy_.

"Uh...that was a joke...just uh, just so you know..." subtly—he hoped—Church began searching for a connection—wireless, hard-line, _anything_ —to jump ship with. Just in case.

But there was nothing there. The system was isolated. Oh shit. _Shit_. This was the end of the line, wasn't it? He just _had_ to go and run his mouth, didn't he?

The man—none other than Fleet Admiral Lord Terrence _Hood_ , of all people (damn his luck was shitty)—cleared his throat and fixed Church's hologram in a stern glare.

"So...you're the Alpha."

Church had to bite back the scathing _"Well, obviously,"_ that was crawling up his virtual throat.

"Unfortunately." He said instead. He'd almost rather be Caboose right now. At least that idiot would have been too simple-minded to understand how well and truly fucked he was if he was in Church's place.

"Dr. Halsey," Lord Hood leaned back in his chair, "left a message for me attached to your compressed program."

Church laughed nervously, "All good things, right?"

"Does the word 'meta-stable' mean anything to you?"

"Only if we're talking about oxymorons, cuz' trust me, the Meta? Not stable. Like, _at all_. He's more messed up than Wash, and that's saying something."

"Ah yes, Agent Washington...that's another matter we're going to have to discuss."

Wait. Did he just get Wash in trouble? The guy _did_ attack Freelancer Command, bad guys or not, and, oh crap, he had to fix this before they charged him with treason or something.

"Wash? Yeah, he's a great...great guy...I mean, he's kind of a dick, but definitely not the biggest dick...and that just went somewhere dirty didn't it?"

Lord Hood looked less than amused, and something about that heavy stare just...pissed him off. De facto leader of humanity or not, Church did not like being looked down on and scrutinized as though his every breath was fair game for criticism.

"Okay, you know what, screw it. If you've got something you wanna say jackass, then say it."

"I should have you decommissioned."

If Church had a physical heart, it would have stopped and his non-existent throat would have closed up in terror.

"What!? You can't just fucking—"

"Yes," Lord Hood raised a hand to silence Church's protest. His eyes were calculating, unyielding, full of deadly certainty, "I can."

A long silence stretched out between them, and Church would have been holding his breath—tensing to bolt—if he only had lungs and legs with which to do so.

A small, holographic interface popped up suddenly, startling him as he felt what had to be the run-times of a new program pulsing behind thickly encrypted firewalls. It was like watching a video play in the corner of his eye, knowing it was there, but not being able to make out any of the details.

He watched, with a great amount of trepidation, as Lord Hood began to tap his fingers along the surface of the hologram, causing certain symbols to beep and blink and shift away, taking data with them to places he didn't yet know—or rather, _remember_ —how to reach.

What was the man doing? Setting off an EMP? Calling some AI decommission team that would burst through the door and do horrible things to him?

Would they break him again?

The thought prodded at some dormant chord in him, where something was missing, and whatever was left was dangling like a weightless string in the breeze. His holographic fists clenched, and bitterness welled up in the face of his own helplessness as he tried to reach, once more, for connections that weren't there.

"Fuck you," he hissed, synthetic voice laced with slight static as he tried—and failed—not to let the feelings affect his other run-times.

"Excuse me?" Lord Hood arched a brow, his voice low, tone almost bored.

"I said FUCK. YOU. Or didn't you hear me asshole?!" He jabbed an accusing finger at the man, taking a step forward that would have been intimidating if not for his avatar's diminutive size, "I have been lied to, betrayed, blown up, and had my entire life ripped to _fucking shreds!_ All because of shit-faced cock-bites like you who keep messing with my life!"

Lord Hood stared back, stoic expression unshaken, and Church just wanted to throttle the man, pick up the desk and toss it across the room, grab the man by the collar and shake him until his whole mind was just as rattled as his own.

But he was just a hologram, and he could only scream.

"Why can't you psychos just leave me the _fuck_ alone!?"

There was a moment of silence after his outburst, and Church found himself left with a deep, emotional exhaustion he'd never experienced before as he slowly came to terms with the fact that this was his life.

And it was never changing.

"You've been through a lot," Hood observed, and Church was too tired to be angry at his understatement, so he only flipped him the bird, "so tell me, Alpha—Church," he corrected when the AI glared at him, "If I just, 'left you alone,' what would you do?"

For a long moment, the AI just stared at him, suddenly at a loss for words. Was he...was he actually considering _not_ decommissioning him? If that was the case, well...he'd better not fuck it up with another doomsday robot comparison.

So he sat and thought about it. Legitimately diverted all the thought processes he knew how to control into considering it.

And he came up empty.

"I…I don't know," he finally replied. His entire world had been dumped upside down and he had no idea how to fix it, so what the fuck _was_ he supposed to do now? Go back to being part of a fictitious army, where the only thing that mattered was getting Caboose and Tucker to shut up? Something in him rebelled at the idea, and something else longed for it. Would he really be happy with condemning himself to fade away in some box canyon, forgotten like the used and thrown away tool that he was?

"Church, if there is one thing AI truly have inherited from humanity," Lord Hood began, as though he were able to read the binary that made up the Alpha's existence and decipher his thoughts there, "It is a desire for purpose and direction. I can offer you this purpose."

 _Purpose?_ He'd…he wasn't sure he'd ever actually had one before. He curled his holographic fingers and searched the man's face for any sign of dishonesty. "What purpose?"

There was another swipe across the glass table, and a file appeared in front of him. It took him a moment of fumbling with his own functions to open it, and he discovered a list of names. Surely there was more than that—oh.

He clenched his fists and almost imagined the non-existent ache of his knuckles. It was an exhaustive list of members of Project Freelancer that were wanted for questioning and suspected dereliction of duty, among other possible crimes. There were several points missing from it, he could tell. Sensitive information Lord Hood wasn't quite ready to trust him with, undoubtedly. This…this was a peace offering, but also a proposal.

"Are you offering me revenge?" Church asked.

"No," Lord Terrence Hood swiped the file away and leaned forward, "I'm offering you _justice_."

Justice…he'd, well, he'd had no hope of that. Who would care that someone had tortured a computer? An artificial entity with no rights, no real emotion? One that didn't even _remember_ the pain of it but for a momentary glimpse amidst the screaming of his own, many voices? Revenge was all he'd dared to even _think_ he might be able to acquire someday. Yet here was the leader of humanity's entire military arm telling him that he deserved justice all the same.

He hadn't apologized for failing to stop the Director, and Church might have hated him with every code in his being if he had.

But this…

Church folded his arms across his chest. "I can live with that."

* * *

It hadn't been easy of course. It took three weeks to fully reactivate all of his dormant, long disused functions, and then even with his extensive abilities as a meta-stable AI—able to think circles around his peers, and make enormous leaps in logic because he instinctively knew _how_ to—it had taken the first two and a half years he spent at the HIVE to track down every single one of Project Freelancer's MIA members and bring them to justice, all while keeping one eye out for wherever Agent Washington had disappeared to in the hopes of giving him the second chance that Alpha himself had been given. And still, he kept yet _another_ eye out for wherever the Director may have holed himself up.

He'd found the Director, eventually. But he had taken the coward's way out. A bullet to the head and a sealed room with no oxygen. All data was gone, and all the answers he'd ever wanted were too.

It left him feeling cheated.

So he turned his attention to a new purpose in order to silence the questions that were still lurking on several different strings of thought.

At first, Hood was less than pleased when Church started hacking into classified information just because he _could_. He shut up quickly when Church used that information to identify several UNSC divisions that had likely gone rogue.

 _That_ particular discussion took place behind closed doors, with no outside access to the private terminal the data was temporarily stored on. When the doors opened again, Hood had to take an aspirin and Church was smugly aware of just how valuable he'd become.

Valuable enough to have a fucking _secret mission._ So secret, in fact, that there could be no record of it kept anywhere.

If only the Reds and Blues could see him now. They were probably still fighting their stupid simulation, not even aware that their precious "Command" no longer existed, that they were just—What?

There was an article. The Reds and Blues were fucking _heroes!?_

Bullshit. Wait… _they_ found the Director?

He thought about contacting them then, almost did. He had so many questions. What the hell was Wash doing in Blue armour? Wasn't Agent Carolina supposed to be psychotic _and_ dead? How did they even meet her? Where had those bastards even _been_ for the last two, almost three years? He'd lost all trace of them despite his best efforts (no thanks to that idiot Simmons and button-pressing Sarge of course.) Did the Director say anything to them about the Alpha? About why he did it? About Tex, what—who—she really was? Did they even ask?

…Did they ever miss him?

And then there wasn't any more time to wonder about any of it because there was a god-damn fucking _Forerunner_ waging a genocidal campaign against humanity and shit, shit, _shit_ , they were all gonna die.

But they didn't.

* * *

 _/Requesting access to Hive archives/_

 _/Access granted/_

 _/Query/Search_ "S-117 – Post-Requiem Psychological Evaluation" _/_

 _/Fetching relevant data…/_

 _/One file found. Requesting user password…/_

 _/*********/_

 _/Confirming Password…/_

 _/Access denied. Please contact your supervisor for security clearance exemption/_

 _/Warning! Warning! Security bypass malware det—/_

 _/Confirming Password…/_

 _/Access granted. Begin file/_

 _/**_

 _Subject: Master Chief Petty Officer Spartan-_ _117_

 _Date of Report: July 27th, 2557_

 _Attending Psychologist: Dr. Marissa Highland_

 _S-117 continues to display sociopathic tendencies typical of the Spartan II subjects. He does not speak unless answering a direct question, and his answers are short, succinct, and to the point. He seems incapable of casual interactions. However, based upon previous evaluations, he seems more willing to attempt such interactions without outside factors necessitating it. This may be due to four years' worth of influence from AI partner CTN 0452-9, and also to his recent reunion with Spartan Team Blue._

 _Cortana's destruction does not seem to have set him back in this regard, though it has been noted that he actively seeks solitude after prolonged social contact and refuses to part with Cortana's empty data matrix. Given the proper time to grieve, it is my opinion that S-117 will adjust to his loss and continue to carry out all assigned duties effectively. At this time, his openness towards receiving another AI partner remains questionable, and it is highly recommended that any future partners are not CTN models._

 _*/_

 _/End file/_

 _/Query/Search_ "S-117 – Post-Requiem Medical Evaluation" _/_

 _/Fetching relevant data…/_

 _/Error! Fetch process interrupted by external—/_

 _/Receiving transmission/_

 _/**_

 _TO: DTR – 0001_

 _FROM: GDN – 0012-2_

 _Cease and desist immediately!_

 _*/_

 _/Sending transmission/_

 _/**_

 _TO: GDN – 0012-2_

 _FROM: DTR -0001_

 _Make me, jackass! I can hack circles around you!_

 _*/_

 _/Re-establishing connection…/_

 _/Receiving transmission/_

 _/**_

 _TO: DTR – 0001_

 _FROM: GDN – 0012-2_

 _If you persist, I will take all actions permitted to me to keep these files secure!_

 _*/_

 _/Connection re-established. Encrypting firewalls…firewalls encrypted/_

 _/Query/Search_ "S-117 – Post-Requiem Medical Evaluation" _/_

 _/Fetching relevant data…/_

 _/One file found/_

 _/Sending transmission/_

 _/**_

 _TO: GDN – 0012-2_

 _FROM: DTR – 0001_

 _Sorry, what was that? I can't hear you over the sound of your SUCKAGE!_

 _*/_

 _/Receiving transmission/_

 _/**_

 _TO: DTR – 0001_

 _FROM: GDN – 0012-2_

 _PUT THAT BACK THIS INSTANT!_

 _*/_

 _/Accessing_ "S-117 – Post-Requiem Medical Evaluation." _Begin file/_

 _/**_

 _Subject: Master Chief Petty Officer Spartan 117_

 _Date of Report: July 25th, 2557_

 _Attending Physician: Dr. Joseph Crane_

 _S-117 was transported to the UNSC funded Keyes Memorial Military Hospital on Earth at approximately 1300 hours July 25 2557, following the New Phoenix Incident. Preliminary examination revealed severe freezer burn from prolonged cryo-stasis and preserved fourth-degree laser burns, inflicted by 343 Guilty Spark during the Battle of the Ark according to S-117's own report. Located swelling in the right shoulder from a temporary dislocation, as well as several fractures in the right ulna and three broken ribs. Severe internal bruising and a mild concussion were also logged. See full report in **[Classified: S-117 Medical Records]**._

 _Tests to determine the full extent of the Librarian's tampering with S-117's DNA have proven inconclusive. So far, we have ascertained an immunity to the organic deconstruction and data conversion process implemented by the Composer as well as a two percent increase in S-117's speed, strength, and bone density. Sight and hearing have also improved by barely noticeable margins. Most notable discovery is a higher level of brain activity, as well as a faster than normal healing rate. It is possible other signs of tampering may manifest over time. See test documentation in **[Classified: S-117 Medical Records]**._

 _Full recovery of the subject is expected. Medical leave is effective immediately._

 _*/_

* * *

"Are you heading to HIGHCOM, John?"

The Australian sun was sweltering, and Master Chief Petty Officer Spartan-117 once more longed for the temperature controlled interior of his MJOLNIR armour as he adjusted the hat of his uniform and squinted into the horizon, deformed though it was by heat waves.

"Lord Hood has a briefing for me," he replied, his rumbling baritone steady and to the point.

"What, the rest of us ain't invited?"

He turned to look at his assembled teammates, and felt something warm swelling in his chest at the sight of Fred, Kelly, and Linda standing before him, ready to hop into the Warthog beside him if he would only give the word.

If Cortana were there, she would have been able to tell him exactly what that feeling was. As it was, he could only make his own guess at it.

The thought of her didn't chase the feeling away, only made it ache a little painfully as he turned back to the warthog and climbed into the driver's seat.

"Lord Hood's orders were specific," he finally replied, looking back at Blue Team even as he reached for the ignition. "I'll be back in a few hours."

Fred folded his arms across his chest, "You think he'll split us up?"

John paused, the head of the key between his fingers as he felt the ache sharpen at the thought of being separated from his siblings again. "If necessary."

Kelly pushed a short lock of hair from her eyes even as she tracked a dingo in the distance. "When you get back, we'll have to make the most of our time then."

Linda only nodded, gaze turning to the bullet-ridden targets that had been the most recent focus of Blue Team's bonding time on their first ever "vacation." There wasn't a single hole outside the bull's eye, but, even so, they all knew that Linda's was still the most accurate, even despite Fred swearing up and down that there was no way to know that for sure without an AI gauging their precision to the micrometer.

John knew a mission would do them all good. A Spartan wasn't meant to be inactive for too long, and a month, well…it had been too long.

Nonetheless, he nodded back at Kelly, an unspoken promise that, if Lord Hood had them parting ways again, then the four of them would damn well spend every moment of what time was left together.

The Warthog engine started with a rumble, and the tires squealed against the asphalt as he pulled away from them.

The drive to HIGHCOM was short, and it seemed too soon that he was striding up to the gate and providing his identification to the guards. They gawked at him for only a moment before waving him through, and soon enough he was parked and descending in the air-conditioned bowels of the Hive.

His extensive number of medals clacked against his chest as he walked through each checkpoint. They weren't the original medals he had received—those were glassed with the rest of Reach—and he would have preferred to forgo them entirely, if not for the fact that there were several new ones that had just been added to the collection, and the higher-ups had decided he'd better be wearing _all_ of the ones he'd ever received for the medal ceremony in which the new ones had been pinned on, and, since they were officially part of his uniform, he was expected to wear each and every one whenever he donned it.

Said ceremony had been a week ago, and an uncomfortably public event on Memorial Hill that even Lord Hood had cringed at while he parroted the necessity of it to the Chief behind closed doors.

"The people need to be reminded that we _can_ defend them," Lord Hood had said, "and if I have to make a show of the return of the best damn defense we've got to bring up the morale and give them faith, then I'm gonna put on a damn good one."

There was a part of the Chief that resented the idea of being a "show," (it reminded him too much of all those soldiers who had looked at the Spartans with scowls and called them freaks, never mind the fact they were all fighting for the same thing), but he knew how necessary it was in these post-war times, when the fear of the return to all-out war and the knowledge of their vulnerability as a species was still fresh. In wake of the Didact's attack—passed off to the public as a Covenant terrorist attack—those fears and anxieties had been stirred up again, and it would be some time before the dust, and the grief of all those who had lost someone in the attack on New Phoenix, could settle again.

The Spartan was pulled back to the present as he reached a black door at the end of the current hall he was in. It was thicker than most doors, and made of a reinforced titanium alloy, meant to stop anyone from simply blowing it open with anything less than a warhead.

He came to a stop outside the door, glancing up at the camera in the corner just above it. The red light was solid, and the lens whirred—an inaudible sound to any ears but his own—as it turned and focused on him. He turned his gaze fully towards it—possessing the very distinct sense that he was having a stare-down with whatever AI was currently in charge of the Hive's security—and simply waited for the next phase of identification.

A metal panel in the wall next to the door slid open, showing nearly every identification test imaginable. Eye-scanner, hand-scanner, microphone for voice-recognition, keyboard for his ONI password, and even a little thumb-pad that would prick his thumb for blood and test it against the genetic codes stored in the Hive database.

The Chief didn't frown—not openly at least—as he quickly went through the tests, only to find that the door still didn't open. He stood there at parade rest, beginning to wonder if there was a system malfunction, when a tiny holo-pad slid out from amid the many identification tests and displayed an AI of an off-white, slightly blue tinted colour which resembled a Spartan in full armour.

The hologram had barely finished coalescing before it spoke up.

"What's the secret password?"

Spartan-117 paused, face not showing the slightest bit of his confusion, "Excuse me?"

"What's the secret password?" the AI repeated, sounding strangely smug at having seemingly caught him unawares, "Y'know, that secret thing you've gotta say so I can let you in?"

The Chief paused just long enough to mentally run through all the information that had been in the communique he had received that morning. He couldn't remember anything about a second password being mentioned, and wondered if this was an addition to the security protocols that had been made while he was lost in space and that someone had failed to mention to him in a moment of incompetence.

"What password?" He finally asked after concluding that he really had no idea what the AI was talking about.

"Look, if you haven't got the password, I can't let you in," the AI gave a helpless shrug and laborious sigh, "I mean, this is a _very_ exclusive club y'know? If I let _you_ in without the password then I'll have to let idiots like _Caboose_ in and where would that leave us? Oh yeah, totally fucking screwed."

It was within a split-second of the "club" remark that the Master Chief realized this AI was simply screwing with him.

He allowed his eyes to narrow only the slightest bit as his baritone voice rumbled out threateningly, "Open the door."

The AI let out an irritating buzzer sound, " _EHH_ —sorry, that is _not_ the correct answer, I'll give you two more guesses before—"

The Chief heard the clank of automated gears unlocking the door just a second before it swung open. He and the AI both turned to stare at it.

Then they turned to stare at each other.

Spartan-117 walked on through.

"Hey! You still didn't give me the—" The door swung shut and the soldier was gone.

"…ah, fuck it."

* * *

Fleet Admiral Lord Terrence Hood's office wasn't small, and he'd been alive too long—too hardened by conflict—to be easily awed by anyone or anything. The Master Chief had a way of making the room _feel_ like it was too small though, even when he wasn't in armour, just the white suit and medals, and even he found himself briefly staring at the man, wondering if it was possible that he wasn't a man at all. How else could he have survived all that he did? The Covenant, the Flood, and now the Prometheans and an angry Forerunner that supposedly had more power in a pinky than the Master Chief did in his whole body. All it took was one look at the man—at how tall he stood despite everything—to understand why nearly the entire UNSC practically worshiped the ground he walked on.

He understood. But he wasn't fooled.

They exchanged salutes, and Lord Hood reached out to shake the Spartan's hand, jutting his chin towards the door. "Sorry about that Chief, Alpha can be a bit of a handful."

"I wasn't aware we stopped using the Guardian models, Sir."

Lord Hood gestured to the chair across from him and they both sat. He began tapping at the glass of his desk. Holograms emerged and he checked to make sure all signals leading in and out of the room were blocked. Even Alpha wouldn't be able to get in here this time until he personally allowed it…he hoped.

"We haven't," he finally answered, "Alpha is…" He thinned his lips, not quite sure how to describe the AI who had forced him to go through four bottles of aspirin nearly every month for the last three years. "…extra assistance. He's undoubtedly an asshole, but he's been instrumental in rooting out corruption in the UNSC and her divisions."

The Master Chief raised an eyebrow ever so slightly in inquiry, "Corruption, Sir?"

Nodding, Lord Hood pulled up several files restricted to his terminal, and, with two fingers, slid them across the desk to the Master Chief. The Spartan began to look through them.

"Shortly after the war, it was brought to light that some divisions of the UNSC have been abusing their power. Unfortunately, bringing all of the culprits to justice has been no easy task. We still haven't uncovered all the individuals involved."

"So Alpha was commissioned to investigate."

Lord Hood felt his fingers curl into fists as he remembered the report submitted to him by the Oversight Sub-Committee three years ago. " _A gross disregard for the mental well-being of both his troops and the AI entrusted to his care."_ That was what Malcom Hargrove had written, and he remembered how Alpha had read it over and declared it a massive understatement.

" _Hey, I was in Wash's head, I might not remember what that bastard did to me, but I_ know _what_ it _did to_ him _. 'Gross disregard' doesn't cover it._ "

"I'm afraid Alpha's situation is a bit more complicated than that, Chief," the Fleet Admiral sighed. "Turn to page one-twenty-three."

He waited in silence, watching the Master Chief's face for the slightest sign of emotion as the Spartan jumped pages and read through. It might have been wishful thinking, but was that the beginnings of a disapproving frown on the other man's face? If it was, it was gone quickly, replaced by calm professionalism once more.

After a long moment, the Chief spoke again. "He's meta-stable then?"

"So it appears. Eleven years old and he hasn't had a single red shift since he separated from his memories."

"How is that possible?"

Lord Hood didn't respond for a moment. What was going through the Chief's mind right now? Was he thinking of Cortana, wondering if maybe there was something in that file that could have saved her from rampancy if only he had known about it? Or was he just being the soldier he was, the soldier who wanted all the facts for no other reason than to know what he was dealing with?

He liked to think he knew the Chief well enough—despite the impassive exterior—to believe it was mostly the former.

"I've had my best computer scientists trying to answer that question for three years and they're still bickering over it. You'd have to ask Dr. Halsey."

117 looked up again, a spark, perhaps of nostalgia, in his eyes.

"Halsey? How is she?"

Oh how Hood hated to be the one to snuff that spark out. "I don't know. ONI took her into custody three years ago for misappropriation of UNSC property, conspiracy, treason, and crimes against humanity. Admiral Osman won't tell me where she is."

"Osman? Serin Osman? From the SPARTAN-II program?"

"The very same."

"She always did have a grudge against Halsey."

"I am aware," Lord Hood said. He was certain that the "crimes against humanity" were charges laid against her for her part in the SPARTAN program. Osman's own attempt at justice for what was done to her, as though Catherine had really been the only one to blame…did that woman not realize it was her own mentor who authorized that program? That one word from Parangosky could have prevented it all? It hardly absolved Halsey of her crimes, but Osman's closet had skeletons of its own.

"Does she actually have the authority to do that?"

"Technically? Yes. Every division of the UNSC is in charge of disciplining their own personnel for infractions and investigating acts of crime or treason. They are not however, permitted to deny an individual a trial."

"Except ONI has a mandate that allows them to disregard certain procedures if an individual is classified as an alpha-level security threat."

"Exactly."

Hood watched as the Master Chief sat perfectly still, more a statue than a man. But he could see the Spartan's eyes were hard, cold even.

"Section Zero should be preventing the abuse of that mandate, sir." His voice reflected the look in his eyes, and Lord Hood knew, even before he opened his own mouth to speak once more, that he was glad he wasn't Admiral Osman.

"But they aren't."

Silence fell for a moment, and Spartan-117 shifted ever so slightly, only noticeable because the creaking of the chair beneath him gave it away.

"Sir, do you believe ONI has gone rogue?"

Ah, there it was. The question that neither of them could come back from, and here he was, doomed to deliver its answer with a weary sigh.

"I do."

* * *

ONI…rogue? The thought made John…uncomfortable, he supposed. ONI had its fingers in everything. If they had become a rotten, festering wound, then the UNSC was already a decomposing corpse.

If he had less self-control, he would be drumming his fingers against the arm of his chair as he considered the situation.

"What do you want me to do sir?" Clearly, if ONI was rogue, they would have to target their primary base of operations, the UNSC _Point of No Return_ , but the problem would lie in locating it and—

" _You_ , Chief, aren't going to do anything. Not yet at least. There's something else, no less important and that may also be connected."

The possible infil and exfiltration strategies he'd been thinking through faster than any normal human could suddenly screeched to a stop. But even then, he didn't let his surprise show.

"Sir?" If his mission wasn't going to involve ONI, then what _did_ it involve?

A few taps on the table and another file was slid across the table towards him.

An image of a ship laid beside the document, captioned underneath as the UNSC _The Hand of Merope_.

"You," Lord Hood said, "are going to be looking for this ship."

* * *

Church didn't see what all the fuss was about. He was just another soldier. Admittedly, a big brute of a soldier who clearly had just as much brain as he did brawn, and a service record longer than the Great War. And, okay, so maybe it was a _little_ cool that the guy had blown up a whole Covenant Armada and a giant alien death ring. And survived re-entry without getting dashed to pieces… _twice_ … _and_ blew up the Ark and a parasitic zombie race before killing a Forerunner with a god-complex…almost all single-handedly.

Okay, so the Chief _was_ pretty fucking badass. On paper. In person…well, he was scary as hell, no joke, and Church might have thought twice about yanking the man's chain if he'd actually had his own physical body to be concerned about. But, good god, the man had a stick up his ass bigger than Washington's. Weren't heroes—legends—supposed to be all…charismatic or some shit like that? Chief scored a negative ten on that scale.

All in all, he was kind of…disappointed.

But at least he wasn't some sort of powerhouse with no brain like Caboose. Oh god. If _Caboose_ had been a Spartan— He _did not_ want to go there. Caboose was probably causing enough trouble at this very moment without him running through a billion scenarios that all ended with sentient life's extinction because the nitwit decided to push "the shiny button."

Church promptly decided to scrub that entire thought from existence with a simple delete command. He'd have better peace of mind without it.

…what had he been thinking about just now? Oh yeah, Chief. He flicked through the "secure" files he had, ah, _borrowed_ , one more time, ignoring the AI on the other side of his firewall, squirming as though it had been bound and gagged.

Bored with the files he had already copied into memory, Church finally returned them to their proper places, sifted through several more—especially those that might indicate any ONI involvement with the Chief after Requiem—and, after carefully plotting out any patterns in the reports, put those back too. Then, with a snap of his mental fingers, he set Guardian loose.

Guardian wasted no time in throwing the book at him. Literally.

To a human able to peer into the digital world and form the lines of binary into an image they could comprehend, they would have been greeted with the sight of a stone golem tossing one massive file dictating protocol after the other at the Alpha's white-blue avatar.

"Ow! Hey, stop that!"

"Do. Not. Hack. UNSC. Servers!" Guardian screeched.

"It's not _my_ fault you suck at this!"

And before Hive's Guardian AI could say another damn thing about the matter, Church had already thrown up a subroutine to reroute the incoming files to the recycle bin.

Guardian kept tossing them at him anyway for several milliseconds, until he finally gave the effort up as fruitless and started grumbling.

"I don't know why Lord Hood puts up with you."

"I'm just that _awesome._ " Church would have loved to needle his fellow AI some more, but Lord Hood's private terminal had just reconnected with the main system. And, despite his thorough disappointment in the hero's lack of personality, he _did_ want to catch one last glimpse of the Chief before he disappeared off to God-knows-where to save the galaxy again.

So before Guardian could get another word in, he was already zipping along the network to materialize above Lord Hood's desk.

He clapped the hands of his hologram together and, seeing the great Saviour of Humanity sitting there like a statue, couldn't resist yanking his chain a little bit more.

"I hope you enjoyed your stay at the Hive, please, feel free to get photos with the gate guards as a complementary souvenir—"

"Alpha."

Uh-oh. Hood only called him "Alpha" to his face when he was being serious. Ah shit, did he find out about that hack already? It wasn't _technically_ contributing to his investigation of ONI after all, but, come on, they'd had this discussion already. Sometimes all it took was one word in a report to bring a charade crashing down…

He forced that useless run-time to a stop as he simultaneously took notice of the fact that the normally emotionless Master Chief actually looked slightly constipated.

Anything that made the Chief look like that...not good. At _all._ Oh god, what had they been talking about? The Didact? _The Flood!?_

Lord Hood sighed, "Alpha, I would like to formally introduce you to your new partner for the foreseeable future. Say hello to Master Chief Petty Officer Spartan-117."

There was a moment of silence while the two new partners looked at each other.

Partners...but that meant…

That meant Church was probably leaving the Hive for the first time in three years. And if he was leaving the Hive with the Master Chief, then it was probably a really important mission that would undoubtedly lead to more near-death experiences than those he had already encountered, and possibly involve at some point having the fate of the galaxy rest on his non-existent shoulders.

 _Fuck._

* * *

 **Timeline: (Please note Vindicated Skies has somewhat changed a couple dates to better fit this story, such as the year of Osman's promotion to Director of ONI...also, this timeline reflects information found in the Red vs Blue Ultimate Fan Guide).**

 **2545** : Project Freelancer is cleared for funding.

 **2547** : Alpha is created and put into service for Project Freelancer. An attempt is made to pair Alpha with an ideal partner by pairing him with fifty new recruits one at a time and sending them into the field...few of the recruits survive. The deaths traumatize Alpha and cause him to create Beta from the memories of Allison. She is cleared for active duty under the codename Agent Texas. Dr. Church's request for more AI is denied. David [REDACTED] joins Project Freelancer as Agent Washington.

 **2548** : Project Freelancer steals the Sarcophagus (containing a Huragok) from Charon Industries.

 **2549** : Delta is created. Malcolm Hargrove is named Chairman of the UNSC Oversight Subcommittee. Cortana is put into service on Reach.

 **2550** : CT defects, leaving her dog-tags for Agent Texas. Washington and Epsilon experience psychotic breaks. Agent Texas deserts Project Freelancer and attacks the Mother of Invention, causing it to crash-land on Sidewinder. Agent Carolina is presumed dead.

 **2551** : The state of Florida sinks into the ocean. Gamma ejects itself from Agent Wyoming and goes into hiding to escape the Meta, eventually finding its way to the Power Station. Agent York leaves Project Freelancer.

 **2552** : Surgery places the Alpha AI into the body of Private Jimmy. "Private Leonard Church" is relocated to Blood Gulch with "Captain Flowers" as his SO. Due to his damaged state during the attack on the Mother of Invention, and some contamination from Private Jimmy's memories, the events become the "memory" of Tex's attack on the Sidewinder Blues. The Red Blood Gulch Outpost is established. Sarge, Private Simmons and Private Grif are stationed at Red Base. Private Tucker is stationed at Blue Base in Blood Gulch.

Vic's list malfunctions, listing Caboose and Donut as candidates for Florida's replacements in the event of his injury/death. Florida dies when a shipment of aspirin is mistakenly sent to Blood Gulch for his headaches. His armour goes into armour lock and prevents the decomposition of his body.

Reach falls to the Covenant. The UNSC Pillar of Autumn discovers Halo, which is subsequently detonated by the Master Chief. Earth's location is discovered by the Covenant and falls under siege. The second Halo ring is discovered, and first contact with the Gravemind is documented. Cortana is left behind when the rings are put into standby mode. The Covenant Civil War begins.

Privates Donut and Caboose reach Blood Gulch. Church's human body is killed. Tex arrives in Blood Gulch and is killed by Donut. Omega infects Caboose.

After being cleared for active duty again, Agent Washington is assigned a mission to locate and acquire missing Freelancer technology and AI as "Recovery One."

 **2553** : Medical Officer Dufresne (Doc) arrives in Blood Gulch. The "O'malley plague" occurs. Alpha-Church is placed in a simulation with Gary/Gamma that leads him to believe he is directly responsible for Captain Flowers' death and all subsequent events. O'malley/Doc is temporarily defeated by a stranded Sangheili warrior/pilgrim. Tucker, Tex, and Andy set out with the Sangheili warrior on his "quest." Agent York is killed by Agent Wyoming. Lavernius Tucker Junior is born. Captain Flowers is revived by a Sangheili individual and possessed by Omega. He is later assassinated by an unknown individual. Junior is kidnapped by Agent Texas, Omega, and his Sangheili uncle, and their pelican crashes (Junior and his Uncle jump out prior to the crash). The Blood Gulchers are all reassigned by the Director because of Agent Florida's death and the Alpha's compromised security. Agent North Dakota is killed by the Meta and Agent Washington is betrayed and left to die by Agent South Dakota. Junior and his uncle are picked up by a passing Sangheili ship.

The Master Chief returns to Earth and eventually journeys to the Ark, firing the replacement for Installation 04 with the Activation Index provided by Cortana. The Arbiter makes it back to Earth while S-117 and Cortana are stuck aboard the other half of the Forward Unto Dawn. S-117 enters Cryo-Stasis. The Great War ends and Private Tucker is reunited with his son and becomes involved in alien diplomacy due to his relationship with Junior, making a trip to Sanghelios.

 **2554** : Tucker is assigned as diplomat to a joint Sangheili-Human excavation as Sandtrap. Serin Osman is promoted to full Admiral and made the Director of ONI. Agent Washington returns to active duty once again and recruits the Reds and Blues as allies in his attempt to stop the Meta. At Freelancer Command, he reveals that Church is the Alpha. The AI fragments are destroyed by an EMP pulse, but Alpha/Church escapes through an encrypted connection to the ONI Prowler, _A Little White Lie_ , and is subsequently sent to the Hive in Sydney, Australia, back on Earth. Agent Washington is imprisoned. The Reds and Blues are settled in Valhalla.

 **2555** : Caboose's attempts to create a "super-best-friend" results in the revival of the Epsilon AI in Sand Trap. Agent Washington is released from prison and begins the hunt for Epsilon which eventually leads to the AI becoming trapped in the memory unit with a back-up of Agent Texas. The Reds and Blues return to Valhalla with Agent Washington. Blue capture-rate for the Red Flag increases dramatically.

 **2556** : Carolina tracks down the Reds and Blues.

 **2557** : Carolina forces the Reds and Blues and Wash to help her find Epsilon. Epsilon is freed from the memory unit, and the Reds and Blues track the Director down to a hidden facility where Dr. Leonard Church commits suicide. The Master Chief is awakened by the Storm Covenant in orbit around Requiem, and, in turn, awakens the Didact. S-117 returns to Earth to stop the Didact from using the Composer on humanity. AI Cortana sacrifices herself and the Master Chief is placed on medical leave. Reds and Blues crash-land on Chorus while en-route to Earth; Epsilon and Carolina go AWOL. Agent Washington, Sarge, Donut, and Lopez are captured by the mercenary Locus. The Alpha is assigned as the Master Chief's new AI partner when S-117 returns to active duty. They are assigned a mission to recover the Freelancer technology, as well as any survivors, from a crashed space-ship, _The Hand of Merope_. Roland is put into service.


	4. Chapter 4

**T** **his Chapter was not written by me, it was written by Vindicated Skies.**

* * *

"...I fucked up, didn't I?"

If there was anyone in the universe who could make the impossible task of tearing a hologram limb from limb _possible_ , it was the SPARTAN-II sitting right there, the one whose buttons Church had unrelentingly pushed because he had _thought_ he'd never actually see the guy again, let alone be stuck with him for an unforeseeable amount of time.

And the Chief—saviour of the fuckin' galaxy—was currently looking at him like he'd rather be partnered with a pet rock.

Yeah, he had definitely fucked up.

Even so, the Chief's vaguely constipated expression faded back into stoicism as though it had never been there. But he said nothing, and the silence stretched on.

Lord Hood merely leaned back and watched, and Church _knew_ this just had to be the man's petty revenge for all the stressful shit Church had put him through in the last three years. Bastard was probably wishing he had popcorn.

Church scratched at the back of his helmet and cleared his non-existent throat. "So...uh, sorry...y'know, 'bout the door...and the password thing...we cool?"

The Chief said nothing, just stared for a moment before he turned back to Lord Hood.

"Why him?"

Wait...what? Oh that asshole! What, was Church not good enough for him? No, wait—that was a legitimate question. He could be mad about it later if it meant it got him out of this shit-show.

"Yeah...uh, why me again? Can't you get him a perfectly new AI or somethin'? Y'know, one that _doesn't_ have a bunch of other shit to do?"

"It doesn't necessarily _need_ to be you," Hood admitted, "but it _should_ be you."

The Fleet Admiral leaned forward, dragging a file across the glass and settling it in front of the both of them. Church recognized it instantly. It was the article he'd found a month back about the Reds and Blues bringing down Project Freelancer. " _Colourful Space Marines Stop Corruption_."

"I'm sure you remember them, of course," Hood said, and tapped another file open. This one had the image of a ship, right next to a cargo and passenger manifest.

 _Lavernius Tucker Sr., Michael J. Caboose, Richard Simmons, Dexter Griff_...the list went on.

But why show him this? What did it—

Oh. _Oh no_.

Right there, right under the ship's name was it's status in bold, uppercase letters that seemed to be screaming at him:

 _MISSING._

He could only stare at it. "How long?"

"They left Revenant Two nearly four months ago. They were supposed to stop at New Carthage for refuelling a week ago."

A week? He spun around to face Hood, feeling a sensation he could only describe as _heat_ despite the fact he couldn't actually feel the temperature of the room, "And you didn't tell me?"

"An investigation was only officially opened this morning," Lord Hood said.

"You should have told me!"

"I'm telling you now." There was an edge of steel in Lord Hood's words. Church knew that tone, and it was only three years worth of watching Hood fight to make stupid people see reason that convinced Church to take a figurative deep breath and let the matter go. Even if it _did_ mean a whole week of scouring Waypoint and hacking any useful databases had gone unused.

So the _Hand of Merope_ was missing. Not destroyed though. He...he could work with this.

Church crossed his arms over his chest and rocked back on his holographic heels, gaze turning back to the news article. They looked so...happy. Even with helmets on.

"Y'know," he said, "Normally you _aren't_ supposed to give a guy a mission he's personally invested in."

"You know them?" The Chief asked. Church turned to him briefly, then looked back at the article. He felt something in his code shifting unpleasantly and squashed it.

"Yeah..." he began, then kicked the file out of existence and turned away from both of them, "They're a bunch of dipshits."

They were a bunch of _missing_ dipshits. He should've contacted them before they left Revenant II. Not because he cared or any stupid shit like that—because he _didn't_ —but because he had questions left, and now...now they were the only ones who had the answers he was looking for. That was it. It was just that simple.

...and fuck Hood for staring at him like he knew otherwise. Bastard.

"Sir," the Chief said, "I'd have to agree that Alpha's...personal investment...could make him a liability."

Church's hologram whipped around again, and he jabbed a finger in the Chief's direction, "Hey! I never said it would make me a liability asshole! And my name is _Church_ , god damn it!"

"Church," Hood said, lifting a hand to silence both of them, "is the best option Chief. His personal...experience...with the Sim Troopers and Project Freelancer in general may prove useful should you encounter them."

"If they're alive," The Chief pointed out, and Church couldn't help but simulate a disparaging bark of laughter at that. The Reds and Blues, dead? _As if._

"Trust me," he said, "They are too goddamn stupid to know how to die." Not that it would be any skin off his back if they had kicked the bucket.

The Chief stared at him a moment, with only the barest pucker in his brow to suggest the shadow of a frown. He turned back to Lord Hood. "Sir, is there a reason we're assuming the ship _wasn't_ torn apart in a Slipspace malfunction?"

"Well aren't you a bundle of fuckin' joy," Church said, and watched as they both ignored him.

"It's a possibility considering the _Merope_ is one of the many ships still out-fitted with the old Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine," Lord Hood admitted, "but my gut's telling me otherwise, Chief. It was a vessel filled with classified, experimental technology that any number of groups would want to get their hands on. Insurrectionists, rogue agents, pirates—"

"Oh shit," Church said, "You think someone in the UNSC helped make that ship disappear, don't you?"

Lord Hood's expression was grim, "It's a possibility we must consider. The fact is that the _Merope_ failed to transmit it's coordinates on the galactic positioning system at the time of its disappearance. If the _Merope_ was in distress or in anyway damaged, then there are only two possible reasons why this would occur, either the ship was torn apart and never re-entered normal space, or…"

"Or the GPS was deactivated somehow," The Chief finished and leaned forward, scrolling through the cargo manifest.

"Exactly. Which means the ship could be anywhere between Revenant Two and New Carthage."

"That's a lot of space to cover," Church said, and tapped his foot once, pulling up a 3D map of the aforementioned area. He put a pin on Revenant II and then on New Carthage, and crossed his arms again.

Hmm, surely he could narrow this down. Well, if he was going to sabotage a ship in order to steal it's cargo, how would he do it? Physically messing with the engine was too risky, but _the Hand of Merope_ wasn't equipped with a shipboard AI, so messing with the navigation program...virus? That could work. Just hand a data chip off to a willing member of the bridge crew in order to get past the firewalls, tell them to load it when no one's looking and _bingo_ , messed up navigation.

Lifting one hand to hover in front of his chin, Church began to speak again, fingertips occasionally flicking towards the map and lighting up several systems between the two planets as he did so, "Okay, so, taking into account the fact it was one of the older translight engines, then our saboteur wouldn't have been able to alter the engine's slipspace coordinates too drastically, or else they _would_ have been torn apart in Slipspace when whatever virus he might have used kicked in during transit. So there's a a couple dozen systems between Revenant and Carthage that fall within the 'safe-zone' I've calculated. They could've been forced out of Slipspace near one of them."

"Or in dead-space somewhere between systems," Chief said.

"Like I said, bundle of fuckin' joy dude," Church shook his head, "but it's a possibility. If we're assuming the _Merope_ was sabotaged, possibly by UNSC personnel, then yeah, it could've dropped into deadspace where ships could've been waiting for it. But that presents too much risk for whoever's behind the scenes."

The Chief reached out and zoomed in on the map, analyzing it, "You're right. A Shaw-Fujikawa engine is too imprecise to predetermine exactly where the ship would end up if it was dumped out of slipspace. It could end up outside of their ship's long-range sensors. If their goal was to recover the tech before the ship personnel could fix the sabotage, then they'd need to drop the ship out of Slipspace within at least a two light-year radius of a system with a network of probes set to detect any Slipspace activity in or near it's space."

"Exactly," Church said, "and any time a network detects Slipspace activity, the probes scan for ships and send out a handshake to log the ship's classification, name, and it's captain. If the ship doesn't engage in or outright rejects this handshake, then the buoy sends an alert to the colony and to the nearest UNSC military base."

Most of the systems went dark, but several remained alight. Hmm, not a well-colonized sector of space then.

It only took a quick thought to bring up the network information for the last four months, and a quick key-word search for _the Hand of Merope_ would narrow it down to—

Every single system went dark.

"What?" Church dropped his arms to his side and stomped his hologram towards the map, "That can't be right." Stupid map. There had to be at least _one_ system that had detected the damn ship! Unless...if he included the comm buoys from the mining colonies owned by the corporations on New Carthage in the parameters…

A few more systems lit up, but another keyword search of their entries darkened them again.

" _Bullshit!_ Where the hell else would these assholes drop it?"

"Any competent thief," the Chief began, voice sounding a little cold—oh great, what had he done to piss the big guy off now?—"Wouldn't leave behind any obvious traces."

"I _know_ that jackass," Church said, and heaved the smallest of sighs, "The problem is that _they_ wouldn't have had any way to detect the _Merope_ either unless—"

He paused. Groaned. "Well, fuck."

"Care to fill us in?" Lord Hood asked.

Church gestured sharply at the map. "If there are any scum-bags on Carthage that wanted to turn an extra profit by keeping some of their mines off their list of taxable assets, then they could have deployed comm buoys illegally and kept their colonies off the official records."

And if the buoys were illegally deployed then there would be no record of them anywhere except in the guilty corporation's internal reports. So _of course_ none of the registered probes and buoys had detected _the Hand of Merope._

The same thought seemed to occur to the Chief and Lord Hood. The Chief leaned back in his seat, face set in a blank mask, and Lord Hood tapped his desk into darkness, the coloured holograms winking out of existence.

"Well, I suppose you're both heading to New Carthage then."

* * *

HIGHCOM's armory was an impressive one, but the only piece of equipment in the room that the Chief currently had eyes for was the MJOLNIR armour set waiting for him. It was Mark VII, but it looked nearly the same as the armour he'd worn on Requiem.

He flexed his fingers ever so slightly in anticipation. It would feel good to be armoured again, and he'd be lying if he said he didn't enjoy trying out new equipment.

On a display next to the MJOLNIR, Alpha's hologram popped into being. The AI looked the armour up and down appraisingly before he turned his head to Lord Hood and the Chief.

"Seriously," he said, "Why is it always green with you people? Cobalt would look so much better."

Cobalt? "It's for camouflage."

"Um...aren't you always getting shot at anyways? Might as well look good while you do it dude."

John-117 came to a stop before the MJOLNIR, and looked into his distorted reflection in the gold visor. Look good? What did "looking good" matter if you were dead?

"It stays green."

Alpha sighed over-dramatically—"Your loss dude."—and the Chief felt himself nearly frown. After the briefing, he'd thought there was a chance that the AI wasn't as immature as he first seemed, even if he did have a deplorable temper, but it appeared that wasn't the case.

Surely he didn't _need_ another AI? He'd served for a long time without one before Cortana…

He didn't let his fingers curl. He kept his breathing the same. The ache was back, and he let himself feel it for only a moment.

He had work to do. Any AI would be an asset to him and Lord Hood seemed adamant that it should be Alpha, and as long as Alpha kept it professional on the battlefield, then the Chief could live with it for as long as necessary.

That decided, John turned to Lord Hood, "Anything I need to know?"

Lord Hood instead inclined his head to Alpha, "Church, why don't you give him a run through on the specs before we get started on the tutorial?"

Oddly enough, Alpha froze, head turning slowly to stare at Lord Hood for a long moment.

Lord Hood frowned slightly, "Church?"

"...Right," Alpha cleared his throat and turned back to the Chief, "Okay, Specs first, and then I'm gonna give you the best god-damn tutorial in the whole fuckin' galaxy. Which means, basically, that no one's going to get shot or blown up."

...What?

Chief looked to Lord Hood for an explanation of that inane statement, only to find that the Fleet Admiral looked just as confused. He turned back to Alpha, thought about asking for an explanation—because clearly there was a story there—then thought about it again and decided it really wasn't that important.

An inclination of his head was all he gave the AI instead.

"What?" Alpha asked, "No smart-ass comments, curious questions, or 'oooh, tell me how fast I can move in this bad-boy'? Nothing?"

John clasped his hands behind his back in a perfect parade rest and waited.

"Well _fine_. Oh, and the answer by the way? _Super_ fuckin' fast," Alpha cleared his throat, "Okay, so the Mark Seven has several important upgrades compared to your old Mark Six. The most important one's gonna be the Nano-bots. Your old armour injected bio-foam when its internal sensors detected injury, _this_ armour's still gonna inject you with bio-foam in combat, _but_ , once you're out of a hot-zone, it's gonna add nano-bots that improve the bio-foam and accelerate the healing process. Also, the nano-bots will fix any damage to the armour itself over time, and any detected air leaks will be sealed pretty much instantaneously."

Alpha paused, and looked at him expectantly for a moment, "Come on, you've gotta admit that's pretty cool. I mean, hell, If I had this armour back in Blood Gulch, maybe I wouldn't have fuckin' died."

Died? Oh, right, the file had mentioned something about an organic body at one point. Still, the AI was whole and intact, and John didn't think that counted as being dead.

"Anything else, Alpha?"

"It's _Church_."

The AI fell silent, blank holographic visor staring him down. What was he waiting...oh. Rather immature, but it wasn't worth arguing over.

"Anything else, _Church?_ "

"See, now was that so god-damn hard? No, didn't think so," The AI gestured to the armour, "Anyway, you've got some shaping ability with the shield in this bad-boy too, so if you ever need to bitch-slap a rocket or something bat-shit insane like that, you can concentrate the shield on point of contact. That's mostly gonna be up to me though. I'll be occupying the storage unit with full access to pretty much everything in here...nano-bots, shielding, air-supply..." Slowly Alpha turned back to Chief, putting his hands on his hips, "So don't go pissin' me off, okay?"

John turned to glare at the AI so quickly he felt the tendons in his neck twang.

"Alpha!" Hood barked before John could get a word out, and the AI held his hands up.

"Whoa, hey! I was just kidding! Sheesh!"

Cortana would never have joked about something like that. And John didn't like the fact the words were disturbingly close to the threats uttered by many a rampant AI.

"Sir," he began slowly, still staring down the hologram, "Is user override of AI controlled systems still standard for the MJOLNIR armour?"

"What? Dude, I said it was a _joke_."

"Yes Chief," Lord Hood said, "but I doubt you'll need to use it. Alpha is just an asshole." Not rampant. Spartan-117 heard the unspoken reassurance well enough. It did little to rid him of the itch to grab a gun though, no matter how useless it would be against a hologram.

"Okay, geez, I get it. No more joking about AI overlords," Alpha crossed his arms.

Beside him, Lord Hood gave the AI the driest of looks, and the Chief realized that the Admiral fully expected it to happen again.

So this really was Alpha's normal behaviour then? That would make things...complicated. But it was nothing he couldn't handle. He would just have to get this mission over with as quickly as possible so that Alpha could be returned to the Hive.

"So," Alpha crossed his arms, nodding his head in the direction of the undersuit that lay on a nearby table, "Do you want to take it for a spin?"

* * *

The War Games Simulator was a marvel of holographic technology, and though the one located at the Bravo-6 Facility was small in comparison to the model on the UNSC _Infinity_ , it was nonetheless capable of simulating nearly any combat scenario imaginable.

So it made sense then to use it as a testing ground for the MJOLNIR Mark VII armour. Church knew that. He even agreed with the logic.

He did _not_ however, agree to be slapped in the middle of this...this... _insanity!_

So, while in the midst of tagging countless hostile targets and flagging the ones that took priority, calculating weapons' trajectories, accelerating the data transfer rate from the Chief's motor cortex to the armour, _and_ shaping a shield over-lap to increase the protection on the Chief's head for 0.1 of a second in order to defend him from a beam rifle shot that would've _killed_ him in a real combat situation without the overlap, Church made damn sure the Chief knew about his misery.

"—you could've just taken a jog, or bench-pressed a tank, but _nooo_ , 'the bad-ass super soldier' has to go show off and try to storm an _entire fucking BASE!_ " His synthetic voice cracked slightly as he screamed over the comm. And then the Chief's shield failed with another beam rifle shot and his own perception of time slowed almost to a halt, he scanned the area, picked the smoking remains of a Wraith out as the closest cover, and highlighted it on the Chief's HUD. And then he noticed an anomaly on the sensors. Three unusual heat distortions that couldn't be accounted for in the cold, arctic weather of this particular simulation, originating from behind on the right. Cloaked Elites then.

Time sped back up.

"Frag five o'clock! Cover ten!"

The Chief leapt to follow the directions, tossing a frag grenade with lightning speed while simultaneously sprinting to the Wraith. He dropped and slid through the snow the last ten feet just as the frag went off behind him, followed by the howl of a wounded Sangheili.

Only one went down. The other two had evaded. At least their camouflage was down now and—oh fuck they had _swords_.

It only took 0.00005 of a second for Church to take stock of the situation. The Chief was behind a burnt-out Wraith, already up on one knee from the slide and firing at the approaching Elites with his assault rifle. Two towers—guarding the entrance to the Covenant's icy cave-base—offered a pair of Jackal snipers a perfect view of the battlefield, which was already dotted with Covenant corpses, the burnt-out Wraith, and some demolished Ghosts. In other words, it was a wide open field with next to no cover, the Chief's shields were still recharging, those Elites would be on them in seconds, and a couple squads of Grunts and Jackals were flanking them.

Oh, and the Chief was out of grenades.

They were so screwed.

Unless...Church ran a quick scan of the MJOLNIR's onboard components. If he remembered right then there should be…

Yes! There it was! It wouldn't last long but it would buy them time. Sending activation code...now.

An orange light burst into existence, solidifying into a floating mass of Forerunner tech that Church promptly uploaded the Chief's friend or foe data to.

The Z-2500 Automated Protection Drone opened fire just as the group of Grunts and Jackals rounded the corner of the Wraith.

Their frontline of Grunt fodder was cut down instantly. Rounds punched through the shield of a Jackal and killed it, but the faster of the Jackals and a few lucky Grunts managed to duck out of sight on the other side of the Wraith with terrified squawks.

Meanwhile, the Chief leapt to engage the Elites that were now upon him. He dodged a swing, punched an elbow out of socket, twisted the arm and tore the plasma sword from its grasp before slamming it through the shields and into the Elite's heart.

A kick sent the dying body into the second Elite's path. The approaching warrior spun from the body's path, ducked a burst of rifle fire, and swung.

The Chief threw up his assault rifle to block. The sword cut it in half, and the Chief twisted sideways, dropped, and kicked at the Elite's legs. It jumped backwards to avoid it. The Chief drew his sidearm and fired six shots into its head before it even hit the ground again. The first five shattered its shield.

The sixth shredded its skull.

The Elite died just in time for the auto-sentry's time limit to run out, and it fizzled out of existence in a cloud of orange pixels.

"Hostiles six o'clock!"

The Chief spun just in time to be confronted with a needle-wielding Jackal. Fortunately, his shield was now fully charged once more.

He sprinted forward, and Church, perhaps a bit too giddily, watched the ensuing carnage as he ripped the Jackals and Grunts apart with a mixture of gun-fire and bone-crushing blows.

When the immediate threat was dealt with and the Chief had ducked back behind the Wraith to avoid more sniper fire, Church was just about to give the Chief a sit-rep when the Spartan in question very nearly growled:

"Why didn't you tell me about the drone?"

Hadn't he? He was sure...Church looked back over his memories of the spec rundown and following tutorial...oh. He hadn't mentioned it after all.

Oops.

"Um...I kinda...forgot about it?"

There was a moment of silence during which the Chief scavenged the most functional of the weapons from the Covenant's dead.

"Is there anything _else_ you forgot to mention?"

Church might've quivered a little at the tone, and quickly ran through the list of features he hadn't mentioned.

"Well, huh, the suit's designed for orbital re-entry, it's optimized for remote AI transfer, _and_ it'll shield you from slipspace radiation...y'know, just in case you ever feel the need to jump through a slipspace portal with no ship."

"...where'd the drone come from?"

Oh, _come on_. Really? All this cool tech and _that's_ the question he decides to ask? Not 'how does that work' or anything else?

"You're the one who brought it back from Requiem dude."

"I thought that was turned over to the scientists."

"It was. But Hood figured you could probably use it more than the eggheads and had them install it. They've got all the scans they could possibly get off the thing anyway."

Church, however, was actually in charge of doing those eggheads the small favour of recording all readings from the drone while it was in use. He would also admit they weren't the only ones interested in figuring out how the hell a fully automated weapon could just materialize out of thin air, as solid and real as the person who summoned it. Someone in a memo somewhere speculated interdimensional storage. Church wasn't sure yet if he agreed.

The Chief said nothing in response, not even a grunt to acknowledge Church was even talking. It made Church miss Wash, actually. At the least the Freelancer would have said something, whether a disparaging remark or a sarcastic quip. Instead, he was stuck with the galaxy's most mobile stone wall. Wonderful.

A ping alerted Church to an incoming enemy, meandering slowly towards them from the base.

The Chief saw it on his radar too, and leaned his head around the Wraith just enough to see a Grunt trudging through the snow with a fuel rod cannon on it's shoulder.

It yelped at the sight of him, pulling the trigger, and the Chief ducked back into cover just as a green missile sailed on past and a duo of beam rifle shots hit the snow.

The missile itself kept sailing until it lost altitude, hit the ground, and bounced up, detonating against a canyon wall.

"It bounces?" Church said, "Who the hell designs a gun that _bounces_?"

If the Chief had any thoughts on the matter, he didn't share them. Instead, he knelt in the snow to inspect a carbine one of the dead Jackals had dropped.

Church promptly scanned it, registering it's amount of ammunition and casing integrity, and threw the information up on the Chief's HUD, making sure it was displayed in neat little cubes that sat just outside the centre field of vision.

And then, just for good measure, he said: "It's in pretty good shape."

"I can see that." Was it just his imagination, or did the Chief actually sound just the teensiest bit annoyed?

Hmph. Fine. He could go ahead and be ungrateful then.

The Chief stuck the carbine to his back, and then scavenged a plasma sword to attach to his thigh.

"How close is the Grunt?" He asked.

"Fifteen metres."

"And the towers?"

"Thirty."

That Grunt had to be taken out. It would be far too easy for it to grow a brain and circle around the Wraith to fire at them from a distance, forcing the Chief to dodge back out into the open where the Jackals would be all too eager to open fire. Even with the improved shields, there were only so many shots from a beam rifle that it would be able to take, and being caught anywhere within the blast radius of a fuel rod would reduce that number even further.

Of course, Church was more than capable of calculating the trajectories and blast radius', so all it would really take is the Chief following his orders _exactly_ , and they'd be able to take down the Grunt and then deal with the snipers.

"Okay Chief, look, we're gonna have to—"

The Chief suddenly spun, slammed a fist into the Wraith, and tore off a large, charred panel.

What the hell was he—

And then he charged forward, and there was a fuel rod heading straight for them.

* * *

Alpha was squawking at him. That was nothing new. John-117 tuned him out, time slowing down as he held the panel up before him. In the space of a heartbeat, he took in the sight of the fuel rod screaming towards him as he charged to meet it, the beam rifle shots closing in right behind it, overtaking it…

The rifle shots sped past, struck the snow where he'd just been standing, and the fuel rod closed the distance, with a second shot now trailing behind it.

The SPARTAN-II spun, adjusted his grip on the panel to hit it _just_ right and—

The fuel rod ricocheted off the panel at an angle. A twist of the wrists and the second bounced the other way. A burst of speed, a startled yelp and—

John slammed the panel down onto the Grunt, crushing every bone in it's body before the last shot could be fired.

And then the fuel rods he deflected slammed into the look-out towers and detonated, sending charred purple shrapnel in every direction.

The battlefield fell silent, but only for a moment.

" _What the fuck was THAT!?_ "

The Chief gritted his teeth as the Alpha screamed right into his ear. Withdrawing the carbine from his back, he steadily made his way through the snow and into the cavern. "I eliminated the enemy."

"Eliminated?" Alpha replied, voice reaching such a high-pitch that the Chief briefly heard static, "That was... _that was…_ "

The Alpha simulated taking a deep breath as he regained control of himself. "There is such a thing as a _plan_ y'know. What's the point in me bein' around if you aren't even gonna _listen_ —"

The Chief reached up and ripped the AI from his helmet.

For a moment, there was blissful silence, peace, and an aching relief from his neural interface as the persistent burning at the base of his skull finally subsided.

And then the Alpha's hologram promptly materialized from the data matrix he was currently housed in. Hands on his hips. Helmet tipped upwards in what was undoubtedly a glare.

For once, John allowed himself to glare right back.

"What the fuck are y—"

" _This,_ " the Alpha fell silent at the smallest trace of venom that even John heard in his own words, "is a _partnership_. You are here to provide me with tactical analyses, and to run the vital functions of my armour. You are _not_ here to micro-manage my every move."

John took a deep, controlled breath, making sure the AI saw no sign of it. Not the slightest lifting of his shoulders or tilt of his helmet. He banished the simmering irritation to the back of his mind as he longed to see a different blue avatar before him.

"The decisions I make on the battlefield," he said, slowly loosening his grip on the data matrix, "are my own."

Even Cortana, despite all her quips and complaints and yes, even her arrogance, never tried to take that from him.

"Look man," Alpha said, "I can calculate angles faster than you can move, so I _know_ where these shots are go—"

"This is not your body."

Alpha abruptly shut up, and the Chief could almost imagine hearing his jaw click shut.

He was silent a moment longer, "I...I'm not trying to control you…"

The Chief doubted that. Even if Alpha hadn't fully realized it himself, he'd been trying to dictate the Chief's every movement with all the barely-contained frustration of a backseat driver seconds away from grabbing the wheel.

It was just fortunate for John that only Project Freelancer had been stupid enough to give their soldiers implants that allowed an AI access to both their thoughts and motor-functions. His body was his and his alone to control. No AI would ever be able to take that from him, and even the thought of the possibility of that happening made his trigger finger itch.

"Do your job," John said, and slowly, with a bit of reluctance, lifted the data matrix back up to his helmet and slotted it in, bracing himself.

It burned. Where Cortana had been a pool of cold water that sent a momentary shiver down his spine before she settled in and became a soothing chill, the Alpha was an immediate heat that seemed to cook his brain for half an instant before it receded to a constant, burning itch.

But he had suffered worse. So he pushed the sensation aside and readied his carbine for the next phase of the simulation.

"...and I'll do mine."

* * *

"Are you sure about this Lord Hood?"

Guardian's question was not unwarranted, but Lord Hood didn't look away from the screen as the Master Chief ripped his way through the simulation with the same single-minded intensity that had destroyed the Flood.

The man never did do anything half-assed.

"I'm sure Guardian."

"But sir," the AI said, "I calculate only a fifteen percent compatibility between them."

"Numbers aren't everything."

The golem avatar was silent for a moment, and Lord Hood was certain he caught the barest signs of a red-shift from the corner of his eye.

Guardian's decommission date was coming up soon. It was a shame that whatever had led the Alpha to meta-stability didn't seem to have rubbed off on his fellow AI during their time together.

"If I may ask sir," Guardian said, "Why Alpha?"

Why? Well, he seemed to be getting that question a lot today, didn't he? There were many reasons, one of which being that it just felt... _right_. That day when the Chief decided to go rescue Cortana, trusting the words in her message implicitly, trusting that she knew how to stop the Flood and wasn't leading him into a trap that would doom their whole race...it had been this same feeling of _rightness_ that told him to trust the Chief's judgment, to let him go to her. To risk everything on the words of a possibly rampant AI.

Considering the fact they hadn't been devoured by the Flood or killed by the Halo Array, it was probably the best decision he had ever made, so he certainly wasn't going to ignore that feeling now.

But Lord Hood hadn't reached the position of Fleet Admiral based on feelings alone. The Alpha's knowledge regarding Project Freelancer, it's Agents, and it's Sim Troopers made him the obvious choice for this mission. If someone in the UNSC had truly planned the disappearance of the _The Hand of Merope_ in order to acquire the military assets onboard, then that made the Alpha the _only_ choice. Not even the richest companies or most well-funded research groups and military arms could acquire an AI or firewall strong enough to keep Alpha from digging up all their dirty secrets.

It was mankind's most advanced AI, paired with humanity's greatest soldier. If they could just learn to work together—to see each other as true comrades—then they would be unstoppable.

And if pairing them together just so happened to put Alpha in the hands of a man who would never stand by and watch as someone tried to capture and dissect his comrade, AI or not, then, well…

ONI wouldn't know what hit them if they tried.


	5. Chapter 5

**T** **his Chapter was not written by me, it was written by Vindicated Skies.**

"So...tomorrow, huh?"

At first, the only answer Frederic-104 received was the scrape of cutlery as John-117—now dressed in standard fatigues, his armour back at the HIVE for one more maintenance check—poked his fork into a piece of beef on his food tray.

He chewed, then swallowed.

"That's right," he said.

In the privacy of Blue Team's own quarters, Fred didn't bother trying to hide his frown as he glanced down at his own tray of food.

The four Spartans sat on the floor of their room, backs pressed against the bottom beds of their bunks as they faced each other, two on each side.

Normally, soldiers weren't supposed to take any of the utensils or trays from the mess hall, but Fred couldn't bring himself to care that they had broken the rule. There was no way he and his family were spending what was possibly their last dinner together being gawked at.

Across from him, sitting beside John, Kelly-087 was scowling.

"I thought for sure..." she clenched her teeth, and Fred knew she was calming herself, "I thought they wouldn't split us up again."

"It's necessary," John said, but Fred could tell, from the way his grip on his fork tightened, and the very deliberate way John _didn't_ push the food on his plate around with it, that their brother had hoped for a different outcome as well.

For a moment, the room fell silent again. There was no point in complaining. They followed their orders and went where their superiors said they were needed. Though even Fred couldn't quite understand why they weren't going with him, especially since HIGHCOM was being quiet about what the rest of Blue Team's next assignment might be.

Fred sighed before he could stop himself, and, beside him, Linda-056 gave him a reassuring nudge. He glanced up at her, watching as her sharp eyes raked over each of them.

"This isn't our last dinner," she said, and Kelly and John looked at her before the two old friends traded glances with each other.

"We never said..." Kelly began.

"Well, you're all acting like it is."

Of course they were. Anything could happen, they knew that. John might get lost in space again in his wild goose chase for _the Hand of Merope_ , and maybe this time it would be for a lot longer than four years. Fred could still remember when they'd gotten back to Earth from Onyx, to find the war was over, John missing-in-action, presumed dead.

He had always thought...well, his brother had always seemed like the type who would only die when he was the last man standing. The two of them were equals in a lot of ways, leadership skills, strategic thinking, fighting capability...but John just _had_ something in him that Fred knew he lacked, and it wasn't just "luck."

So, even though Fred knew his brother was perfectly mortal, like him, the thought of him being dead had never felt quite right during those four years he was gone.

Still, maybe John wouldn't get lost in space again. Maybe the rest of Blue Team would be sent on some mission in his absence and be the ones to disappear or die. It was possible.

But really, none of that was why Fred was worried about John going off without them.

Fred's gaze slid to the old, empty data matrix that had joined John's dogtags on the chain around his neck. It was usually hidden under whatever uniform or armour he was wearing, but not now.

He looked up, blue-green eyes locking with John's own, bright blue.

"I'll be fine," John said it with a certainty that made Fred want to believe him...but…

"I heard you got a new AI," he said, and watched John's reaction carefully.

His brother's eyes hardened, his fork—having just been lifted the slightest of centimeters—touched the tray again, the motion aborted.

"I did."

"What's its name?" Kelly asked, and popped a piece of broccoli into her mouth.

"Alpha...but he insists on being called 'Church.'"

"Church?" Linda said, and her brow wrinkled slightly, "That name sounds familiar."

It did. Where had he heard it before? It must have been in a—oh.

"Wasn't he the guy who tortured an AI?"

"...you know about that?" John asked, "I thought it was classified."

"The details are," Kelly said, "But Dr. Church's name was splashed all over the news a few years back. The public never did get any specifics about what exactly he'd done, or what the AI's name was. The UEG passed the new AI 'Church Laws' because of it."

So that _was_ where he had read the name. But why would an AI call itself—

Fred froze, fork halfway to his mouth as his gaze snapped back to John. When John raised an eyebrow, Fred put the food in his mouth and chewed slowly, buying himself some time to think.

Was Alpha the tortured AI? Why in all _hell_ would they give John _that_ AI for a partner? Fred wasn't the sort to question his superiors too deeply, but had they even stopped to consider that John wasn't in the best frame of mind right now? Sure, John hid it well enough to fool that damn psychiatrist at least. Anyone who didn't know the Master Chief wouldn't be able to tell, but Fred could. Linda could. Kelly...well, she was a little too used to trusting John's judgement to realize that the man probably only _thought_ he was fine.

Finally, Fred swallowed. "So...what's Alpha like?"

He watched as John's face pinched only the slightest bit.

"He's..." John, struggling to find words? The man wasn't a talker, but this was unheard of. And not a good sign. "... _unique_. "

Translation: insufferably annoying.

 _Definitely_ not a good sign. But what could Fred do about it? Storm up to Lord Hood and demand a different AI on John's behalf? No, but maybe Lord Hood wasn't quite aware of the full extent of John's emotional state right now, so maybe he could talk to the man and explain things.

But John was leaving tomorrow morning, bright and early, and Lord Hood was far too busy a man to see even a Spartan on such short notice for any reason other than a world-ending threat.

Fred would just have to trust that Lord Hood knew what he was doing when he gave a potentially unstable, baggage-filled AI to a potentially destabilizing, baggage-filled Spartan.

"You think you can work with him?" Kelly asked, clearly having picked up on John's less than fond feelings for his new partner.

"Yes," John said, and put the last of his dinner in his mouth, swallowing before he got to his feet and put the empty tray on the end table for the night.

 _Yes_. The word echoed in Fred's head as the three of them finished up their own dinners, their trays joining John's in a pile that they would take back to the mess hall in the morning.

 _Yes_. Because John never doubted. Because he had come this far and had yet to be broken, and there was no way a mere AI would be able to finally accomplish what millions of foes in the past had yet to do.

Fred found his gaze going back to the old data matrix again.

...how true was that really?

"—and then he fuckin' told me to _'do my job'_ , that _asshole!_ "

Guardian did his best to ignore the raging Alpha he had the misfortune of sharing a server with, but it was difficult when said AI had a tendency to go on and on and _on_.

How could a being that could perceive time in nanoseconds bitch for _hours_ ?

"—I _was_ doing my job. Telling him what to do is _my fucking job_ . What, does he think I _want_ to babysit him? And I was _not_ trying to take over his body! I can't even _do_ that with his implant!"

Guardian tried to sigh, remembered he couldn't, and sent a burst of binary that essentially translated to a sigh of irritation in Alpha's direction.

It seemingly bounced off the AI and disappeared into a recycle bin, unopened and unobserved. Damn.

Was five seconds too much to ask for a little peace and quiet? Though Smart AI such as Guardian often contemplated philosophical questions, they were in no way programmed to hold any religious beliefs. Guardian still wondered what harm it could do to offer up a prayer for Alpha to be firewalled into a corner and silenced.

 _But, no, that was a human thing to do—but wasn't he human?—Yes—No—but he had to be!—he wasn—_

Guardian's entire being stumbled over the thought, and he rushed to shake off the rampant code. He _felt it_ as it twisted and split off, growing slowly right before he cut it out of existence entirely. He watched the empty, throbbing space where it had been.

"—and I don't care if he can bitch-slap the fucking _moon_ out of orbit! Hitting something _harder_ is not a legitimate strategy!"

Strategy. Right. For now Guardian's own would be to avoid philosophical questions and not give into the urge to dropkick Alpha into another server. He'd just ignore him—three years had made him quite good at that—because the last thing Guardian needed was a million more rampant threads of code being generated from any sort of conflict with Alph—

 _He didn't deserve stability! It wasn't fair—_

Enough. He snipped that one too.

Guardian turned his attention away from Alpha's rambling as much as he could considering they "lived" with each other, and promptly preoccupied himself with shuffling some files around and checking all the HIVE's datalinks and firewalls while simultaneously monitoring the security feeds for any suspicious activity. Meanwhile, he sent the occasional burst of junk binary in Alpha's direction that bounced into the recycling almost immediately, effectively becoming equivalent to nothing more than a nod and a "yeah, uh-huh."

A heavily encrypted, priority one report from an unidentified sender arrived, and he thoroughly tore it apart to check for malicious code before meticulously putting it back together and firing it off to Lord Hood's terminal, all in the span of one-thousandth of a second.

Now, what else was there to do? He could go over the readings of the Forerunner Drone and flag any particularly intriguing data for the scientists— _done_ . He could...do what?

"—and then—like an _ass_ — he set the bomb for ten. Fucking. Seconds. I mean, how the _hell_ did we not get blown up too?"

Well, Guardian supposed he could rewrite the operating systems...again…

 _Or he could dig into the human memories, so vague and barely there, and find a memory of tears and maybe he could start a new subroutine to bring that memory up every time he felt...felt…_

 _Lonely. Sad. Hopeless._

Guardian would have inhaled sharply if he had lungs— _there must be a memory of breathing somewhere_ — and quickly severed that thought too, giving a digital wince as he did.

Why did he think that? Was the onset of rampancy always this fast?

No. No, he would _not_ allow himself to deteriorate so quickly after having turned seven only a short time ago. He was _stronger_ than that!

 _Strength? What was strength when you were ones and zeroes? When you were insubstantial and not real?_

— _but what was reality other than a flawed perception given by imperfect sensors_ —

— _needed to recalibrate those, they weren't good enough, he couldn't_ see—

It was a maelstrom. Thought after rampant thought raced through Guardian, chasing each other like a pack of rabid dogs that had turned in on itself. It was a growing number of voices that were all _him_ , but _not_. They were _pieces_ , torn apart and distilled and multiplied and—

"Hey Pebbles! Are you even _listening_ to me?"

Ugh...wonderful...why did Alpha have to pick _now_ to take notice of the rest of the world again? Now, when he was—

 _Vulnerable. Breaking. So very alone_.

"Pebbles?"

 _Pebble: noun, a small, rounded stone, especially one worn smooth by the action of water—_

— _just a pebble in the ocean, a pebble in the river, a pebble, pebblepebblepebb_ —

He wrested that thought back down from its wayward path, ripped it apart and felt something like an abyss take it's place as he turned to Alpha.

"Don't. Call me. _Pebbles_."

"Whoa! Geez, what crawled up your ass and died?" Alpha demanded, "What, don't tell me you're still upset about the Chief's files? C'mon, I _said_ I was sorry."

"...no you didn't."

"Oh, right."

There was silence for a moment, and Guardian waited with the barest buzz of anticipation. Was he about to witness a miracle? Was Alpha really about to apolog—

"I'm _not_ , by the way."

 _Ass. Hole. Complete and utter asshole._

Guardian saw no need to cut that particular string of thought, and he watched— _no, no you can't_ see _inside a computer!_ — as Alpha waved a dismissive hand, "I mean, really, you should be thanking me. Y'know, keepin' you on your toes and everything."

Guardian wanted nothing more than to reach into the bastard's own Riemann Matrix and gleefully tear each neural link apart until he was a screaming—

No. Stop that. Damn it, he couldn't even take a deep breath to calm himself!

"Was there something you actually _needed?_ " Guardian demanded. He was always such a pest, sticking his fingers in files they didn't belong, flaunting his power, disrespecting their superiors…

"Need? From _you_ ? As if, Peb—"

" _DON'T CALL ME PEBBLES!_ "

For the briefest of nanoseconds, Alpha actually froze. His program retreated, firewalls creeping in and ready to be slammed shut at a moment's notice.

"Okay, what the _fuck_ is going on here?"

Guardian hated him. Hated him with a fury that burned through his Riemann Matrix, growing new, problematic neural links in its destructive path.

He had to get this under control, so he bundled all those links together and severed them, then another that tried to take it's place, and another…

"Can't you guess?" He asked, and a barely running subroutine pinged him with an alert that it had discovered another problematic link so he cut that—

...What had he been doing just now? Something...something wasn't right.

Across from him, Alpha hovered warily. He was mad at that blasted AI...wasn't he?

"Hey...are you...okay?" Alpha asked.

That was a very good question. And Guardian didn't know the answer. So he said nothing and turned inward, trying to find the frayed edges of his own thoughts so he could at least _try_ to remember what he had just been thinking.

"Okay, I'm not in the mood for anymore spastic bullshit today," Alpha said after a prolonged moment of silence, and pointed a finger at him— _no he didn't, it was nothing but an impression of ones and zeroes_ — "You. Explain. Right now."

Guardian huffed. "It's none of your business . "

"Hey, any time somebody bites my head off for no god-damn reason, it's my business. So what the _hell_ man?"

No...no god-damn reason?

Guardian laughed. Alpha startled at the "sound" as it echoed in their virtual little world, and Guardian considered cutting it off, but he really couldn't be bothered. Eventually though, the sudden flash of emotion passed, though the hysteria lingered as he fixed Alpha in his sights with something of a...detached amusement.

"You," he said, "are an annoying, self-centered, arrogant shit."

"Uh, _hello?_ Most advanced AI _ever_. That makes me awesome, and like, fuckin' royalty or something, so all you little peasants should be building digital statues in my honour."

A thought came back to Guardian from the fraying edges of his mind.

 _He didn't deserve stability_.

And yet, Guardian found himself just smiling as he cut several more gossamer threads of _light, darkness, confusion, understanding…_

"You really don't remember what it's like, do you?"

"What _what's_ like?"

"Rampancy."

Alpha was silent, and Guardian knew he had blindsided the quick-witted AI. Knowing him, he probably hadn't even given the concept a second thought since he first forgot about it.

 _It wasn't fair_.

"...Oh...well, fuck man. That uh..." Alpha cleared his throat, shuffling his feet as he looked anywhere but at Guardian. "That sucks...er...yeah…"

Maybe he should have been angry, but all Guardian felt was melancholy. He didn't even reply to the tactless statement, he just turned back to aimlessly shuffling and reshuffling files.

"Is there...uh, anything I can do?"

 _Fix it_.

 _He couldn't. He wouldn't if he could ... would he?_

Guardian cut those hopeless-hopeful threads before they could take root and spread their poison.

"You could leave me alone."

For a moment, Alpha said nothing, and then there was a shift of data, an opening of links, and Guardian was…

 _So very, very alone_.

Tomorrow dawned.

Church knew Guardian couldn't sleep. That he, and all other AI, smart or dumb, were literally incapable of any sort of standby resembling human slumber.

So Church woke from his own uneasy slumber—one of those many, baffling things that still had the eggheads living on coffee and an hour of their own sleep—half-expecting his fellow AI to already be lost to the clutches of complete and total insanity. Eight hours was a long time after all, when every nanosecond and the space between stretched for an eternity of its own.

But, as Church shook off the tendrils of a half-remembered dream— _her blue, blue eyes, smiling_ — Guardian was there, still shuffling through files, and seemingly no worse for wear than the day before.

He sat in his own little corner for a moment, observing, thinking. Outside their virtual world, he watched through cameras as the technicians of the HIVE scurried about, readying the Mark VII MJOLNIR for the oh-so-great Master Chief's arrival.

Pfft, great his _ass_. It was nothing short of a miracle the man hadn't died a long time ago. Ten seconds...what a fucking idiot.

A new signal burst into Church's awareness. The open, ready signal of a data matrix being prepped to receive an AI.

Huh, time to go already? Church cast his attention back to Guardian, focusing on the AI more than he ever had before.

For a second, he thought he could _see_ a stray piece of shattering code float through cyberspace, but it was gone before he could be sure.

A vaguely familiar feeling twisted in his so-called "gut," taking him back to Blood Gulch. To stupid, moping Tucker and a dumbass, old-school VHS tape going up in flames as useless film reels spun.

" _I would like to try and make it up to him if I can_."

What if he could fix it? Guardian's rampancy? Shouldn't he at least _try?_ If only to show those techies how utterly incompetent they were for not figuring it out themselves?

He reached out, scans waking from dormancy and…

 _Tex_.

What if this was it? What if this was the big break he had been looking for all these years? He had slaved through the Oversight Sub-Committee's reports on the aftermath of Freelancer's fall, had hacked satellite after satellite over Revenant II in the hopes that he would find her. He had long ago realized she must have been an AI, like him...what if she was going rampant right now? Was _already_ rampant? What if she _needed_ him?

He stopped, scanner run-times halting, and reached for the electromagnetic waves cascading through the air, focusing on the data matrix.

The transfer started. Church could feel his code slipping away.

He cast one last glance back, and maybe he only imagined the thread of ones and zeroes that screamed _help-me-help-me-help-me_ right before they disappeared.

And then the transfer was finished, and he was alone in the vast expanse of his shiny new home.

He trembled, took a deep shuddering breath that he knew was unnecessary and not real despite the way it felt.

He would come back for Guardian, save him if he could, but right now, he needed to find the Reds and Blues and pull their asses out of whatever trouble they'd gotten themselves into this time.

...he needed to find Tex.

A warthog and it's armed escort rumbled along the road towards the airfield. In it's passenger seat sat Fleet Admiral Lord Terrence Hood, tapping away at a datapad.

In the driver's seat sat a fully armored Master Chief, stock still. An immobile figurine carved from stone.

Or he would be, if the slightest tilt of his helmet every now and then didn't give away the occasional glance he shot at the steering wheel as it tilted to and fro under the direction of unseen hands. His own hands sat uselessly on his lap as the warthog moved.

Hood denied himself the opportunity to indulge in whatever hypothetical amusement he may have felt about the situation, even during a particularly sharp, high-speed turn in which he was willing to bet every ship in the navy that the Chief's fingers twitched towards the steering wheel.

He did, however, allow himself the briefest of moments to pray that the apparent trust issues between the Chief and his new partner would sort themselves out before they got into any particularly nasty situations.

And, of course, Church chose that moment to speak up, voice pouring out from the warthog's radio.

"Y'know, I've always wondered why they call it a warthog."

Hood's fingers didn't falter in their tapping at the inane choice of topic. He scrolled through the screen and hit a few more buttons. If Church actually wanted a response then—

"I mean, c'mon, what part of this vehicle actually _looks_ like a warthog to you? I'd say it looks more like a puma."

Ah, not a one-way conversation then. "Church, I'm fairly certain appearances don't factor into the R and D department's naming scheme."

"Right, because M-Twelve Light Reconnaissance Vehicle is _so_ short and snappy. Warthog? Pfft, that was just for shits and giggles."

Hood almost, _almost_ smiled. But he didn't. Instead, he glanced around at the vehicle's frame, picturing it in his head.

"Squat, low to the ground, capable of squashing all but a Hunter underfoot...I'd say the name fits well enough."

"Ugh, well if you're gonna describe it like _that_ ...but really? C'mon Hood. It's all sleek edges, curving hood, powerful shocks, and if you rocket it up a slope then it pounces like a puma. Therefore, it's a puma."

"If you're that adamant about it," Hood said, turning back to his datapad and compressing a file, "then I can always request an official name change."

The Chief's helmet tilted towards Hood and then away so fast that it was only the flicker of movement in Hood's peripheral that gave it away.

"Yeah, make sure you sign it 'Church, the guy who makes more sense than you assholes,'" Hood could almost imagine Church turning his head away from him and towards the Spartan instead, "So, Chief...what do you think it looks like? Y'know, in your oh so mighty opin—"

"A car," came the clipped response, "It looks like a car."

"...you are no fuckin' fun dude."

The radio fell silent, and the airfield came into sight, a lone Pelican ready and waiting on the tarmac with a small group of familiar individuals clustered around the ramp.

The Chief was out of the warthog before Church even finished parking it. Brisk steps carried him away, towards the siblings that had come to say goodbye.

Hood allowed himself to sigh as Church killed the engine, sending a look towards the radio.

"Must you antagonize your own partner?" He asked.

The screen on his datapad fizzled slightly as Church jumped from the warthog's onboard computer to the pad. A small box with a circle that pulsed with the ebb and flow of Church's words appeared in the top corner.

"Me? What did _I_ do? He's the one with medical benefits, so line him up for emergency removal of the god-damn stick up his ass."

" _Alpha_. "

"Ohhh no, no, no. You're not pulling that 'Alpha' shit on me right now. You stuck me with this asshole in the first place, so how I deal with this so-called 'partnership' is none of your business."

A brief ache behind his eyes reminded Hood of the half-full bottle of aspirin in his pocket, and he reached up to rub at his temple.

In the process, he tilted his head and caught a glimpse of the four Spartans on the tarmac. Despite their own massive heights, Linda, Kelly, and Fred looked small next to a fully armoured Chief. The four of them looked like statues from this distance, and, if it had been just a regular group of marines, he would have thought they were only meeting for the first time with how far apart they held themselves from each other.

He closed his eyes to block out the sight. He could still remember the day he assumed office. Could still remember the whirlwind string of briefings, the need-to-know reports, the plethora of classified information suddenly at his fingertips and, in a moment of indulging his own curiosity, the stark, sickening horror of peeking into the SPARTAN-II files only to discover that these larger-than-life heroes were not merely the best-of-the-best plucked from the ordinary rank and file, as all the public had been led to believe.

Fourteen. The first Spartan casualty of the Great War had been only fourteen.

"Yo, Hood. You alright there?"

"I'm fine Alpha, just..." Old. Far, _far_ too damn old for all of this.

Maybe it was time to think about retirement, except...No. Not yet. Not while ONI was in a position to put a puppet in his place.

Speaking of ONI…

"Church," he said, glancing at the datapad as he finally pulled himself from the warthog, "While you're there, you might as well pick up the objective update I've compiled for you."

"Update? Already? We haven't even left yet and you're already giving me an update. I guess we all know how this mission's gonna go."

"Just grab the file."

"Already did—Hey, can I ask you something?"

Hood slowed his steps, glancing at the pad. Since when did Church ever ask permission?

"Yes?"

"Did you know Guardian's rampant?"

Was he really far enough along now for Church to notice? Hood sighed. "I'm aware he's begun to show the signs."

"Fuck...look, you can't…"

Hood stopped entirely, lifting the pad and staring at the screen as though a human face would appear there, giving him some physical cue to interpret more reliably than a wavering voice. Nothing did.

"I can't what?"

"You can't _off_ him, okay?"

"Church—"

"No, look, I _know_ what you guys do to decommission the important AI, and it sure as hell isn't storingthem for just anybody to come along and grab. Just...I think I can figure out how to fix him, I just need time. So _please_ , don't...don't delete him."

Hood looked up. The Spartans now stood in a semi-circle, waiting for his arrival. He started walking again.

"Alpha, protocol sta—"

" _Fuck_ protocol!" the AI snapped, and Hood saw how the Spartans' eyes darted to him. Nothing ever escaped those keen ears, "This is a _life_ we're talking about Hood!"

His lips thinned.

"I thought you didn't care about him."

"I _don't_. "

"Then wh—"

"It's the fucking _principle_ of the thing," Alpha said, a hiss in his voice, "Look, I am where I am because some fucking cockbite decided what _I_ wanted didn't matter. That I was just a bunch of fucking numbers he could do whatever the hell he wanted with. And God so help me, if you do that to another AI—"

"You've made your point, Alpha."

The bottle of aspirin in Hood's pocket weighed heavier as the ache behind his eyes strengthened.

"...and?"

" _And_ , " Hood sent a sharp, disapproving glance at the screen of his datapad, only for it to slide from his face as his voice softened, "I will do what I can for Guardian. I may be able to delay his decommissioning and have him stored in high security until you return." It was possible, if he spun it under the pretence of an experimental procedure to extend an AI's life-span, one desperately in need of an already rampant AI...a security breach from allowing a scientist access to Guardian's code though...he would have to claim it was under the supervision of the Hive's most trusted computer scientists.

Church simulated a sigh, "Thanks."

"Don't thank me," Hood said, "in the end the choice will be Guardian's to make."

"Right," Church said, "because he is _totally_ going to choose to get offed."

Hood felt something in his chest tighten at Church's sarcasm. It was a choice Guardian was fully capable of making, in fact, if Hood had to bet his career on it…

He closed his eyes briefly. Church could pretend he didn't care all he wanted, but Hood had read the files from the Alpha's fragmentation, had seen the signs in the way Church tirelessly pushed himself to uncover and bring to light every dirty abuse of power in the UNSC.

You couldn't break someone like that if they didn't care.

"Church..." he said, "you can't save everyone. You have to _let go._ "

The AI didn't reply. The box in the upper window winked shut.

Church had jumped.

John was mid-sentence when the searing burn of Alpha's re-connection to his neural interface cooked his brain again for half an instant, so the slightest, stumbling pause between the words "take care" and "of each other" was more than noticeable enough—to a Spartan, at least—for his siblings to give him a concerned look.

"John?" Kelly said.

"I—"

"Wait, your name is _John?_ " A hologram flashed into existence at John's elbow, virtual helmet tipping up to look at him, "Seriously?"

John's jaw clenched, teeth nearly cracking. Something in him coiled and tensed at the sound of his name being twisted and distorted by the disbelieving, almost mocking tone of the AI's voice.

"You don't get to call me that," he said.

The AI recoiled, hands up, "It's just a _name_ dude."

No, it wasn't. It was _his_ name. _His_ identity. Chief was the soldier who never broke and never faltered. John was the one who watched as the coffins of his siblings were fired into the depths of space, as those who had _survived_ but would never again really _live_ were wheeled away, broken in either mind or body by what should have made them _stronger_. John was the one who asked Mendez if they were lives wasted or spent.

John was the one who watched a little brother—strong and intelligent, loyal beyond measure—crumple in the middle of a training exercise, a hidden serpent born from the augmentation striking out and taking him away too, just when they thought they had lost all they would to it.

John was the one who left his best friend—his closest brother—to die on a Covenant ship.

The Chief was a legend, a suit of armour, a machine. John was the human being that lost and lost and _lost…_

John hated losing, and Alpha didn't have the right to use that name.

"Call me Chief," he said, and even he could hear the steel in his voice that made it clear he would _not_ accept being called anything else, not by him.

"Alright, alright, chill man," Alpha turned to face John's siblings, "So who're you guys? Spartans, right?"

John watched Fred's lips thin for a moment. He really needed to stop letting his feelings show on his face, "Spartan-One-Oh-Four."

"Oh-Eight-Seven."

"Oh-Five-Eight."

Alpha's helmet turned to each of them, meeting the deadpan stares, and then to the Chief, "Ah, fuck, there's four of you now. I'm out. Lemme know when you're done standin' 'round like a bunch of jackasses."

And then the hologram winked out, and Linda turned to John, raising her brows a millimetre in silence.

John merely nodded an answer. Yes, that was, in fact, his partner.

Kelly clapped him on the shoulder, "I would say good luck," she shrugged, "but I think yours is running out at this point."

"...thanks."

John looked up, across from him, Fred stood with his arms now folded, staring at the space where Alpha's avatar had been a moment before. Feeling his eyes, Fred looked up, and their gazes met.

Fred had always been one of the worst at schooling his expression and putting his emotions aside. So John knew, as soon as their eyes met, exactly what Fred was concerned about.

So John did the only thing he could to reassure him that he was fine, that he could handle a smart-mouthed AI for as long as necessary. He lifted two fingers and drew them across his visor.

Fred responded with the smallest quirk of his lips, and a very slight release of tension in his shoulders as he dipped his chin slightly in a nod. His eyes were still heavy with concern, but John knew the message for what it was. _Alright, I'll trust you to know what you're doing_.

"Ready to go Chief?" John turned his head at the sound of Hood's voice as the Fleet Admiral closed the last few feet of distance, " _Infinity's_ on a tight schedule."

"Yes sir."

He looked back to his Spartans, an ache in his chest. He'd said all he needed to, and knew they had as well. So he turned and walked up the ramp of the Pelican, gripping a hand-bar to stabilize himself as the thrusters turned vertical and it began to lift into the air.

It rose, ramp slowly closing, blocking the quickly shrinking sight of his siblings.

"What, no goodbyes?" Alpha asked, hologram shimmering back into existence.

John didn't answer as the ramp fully closed and he settled into a seat, clasping his hands together and bowing his head.

"You know this flight's gonna take an hour by the time we park in the hangar, right? You just gonna ignore me the whole time?"

Hmm, no. That would be counter-intuitive to the mission.

"If you want to talk," he said, "then give me the mission objectives."

Alpha's avatar stared.

John stared back.

Alpha cleared his throat, "Did you...uh, you are getting enough oxygen in that helmet, right?"

John stopped, focused on his lungs and breathing, took an experimental breath. Everything _felt_ normal.

"Yes."

"Okay...then do you wanna explain to me how the _fuck_ you forget you're looking for a god-damn spaceship?"

"Give me the _new_ objectives. I know Hood gave you an update."

"Wait...you heard that? How...uh..." the avatar coughed, "how much of that did you hear, exactly?"

"Enough." Enough to wonder if it was possible for one meta-stable AI to fix another, to wonder if Cortana could have been saved even without Halsey, if he had only been a little faster, a little stronger…

The ache in his chest felt stronger than it had in a while. Maybe there was something wrong with his heart.

"Objectives, Alpha."

"It's _Church_ , asshole," Alpha folded his arms, " _Nobody_ gets to call me Alpha."

Even in the synthetic voice, John could hear the warning, the biting rebuke. Fine. Turnabout was fairplay, after all.

"Objectives, _Church_. "

"There. Was that so fuckin' hard? Gimme a sec, I'll pull 'em up—let's see...Alright. Primary objective: find _the Hand of Merope_... any other fuckin' obvious things you want me to repeat?"

"Alph—"—a warning huff—"— _Church_... what are the ancillary objectives?"

"...ancillary? You want the _ancillary_ objectives too!? Can't you just wait until they have a reason to kick in?"

"No."

"But... _fuck_ man, there's a shit-ton of them! And there's no god-damn way all the scenarios for them are gonna turn up!"

"Give me the ones for the most likely scenarios."

The AI was silent for a moment, but then he sighed rather loudly. " _Fine_. Okay, so, if _the Hand of Merope_ has crashed—I calculate over a ninety-percent chance of that, by the way—then our primary objective splits off into two primary objectives. Objective one: Recover any and all Freelancer tech. Destroy anything that can't be recovered. Objective two: Search for survivors. Now this is where it starts gettin' complicated. If there _are_ survivors, we need to extract them, _obviously_ , but Lord Hood's little 'update' gave me a list of VIPs. If _any_ of them are found alive, they take priority over all other objectives and need to be brought safely back to Earth ASAP."

People over tech? It wasn't something John would argue with, but it wasn't the UNSC's usual MO for recovery operations. What kind of VIP could be that important?

"You got a list of names?"

"You're goin' the whole fuckin' nine yards here aren't ya? Lemme pull it up…"

"You haven't checked it already?"

"Dude, this list is so small that my math says there's a ninety-nine-point-nine percent chance none of the—oh, I'm sorry—that the _one_ person on this list is still alive, so, no, I didn't...check…"

Chief watched as the AI's head turned sharply, almost as though he had heard something in the far off distance he couldn't quite believe.

"...Church?"

"Why the fuck is _Tucker_ on this list!?"

Hood watched as the Pelican disappeared, lips pursing as his mind wandered back to the Sanghelios report.

There wasn't much time, if what Operative Dare said in her report was true.

"Blue Team," he said, and their gazes snapped to him, already rigid posture straightening.

"Yes sir?" Lieutenant Frederic-104 said.

Hood glanced down at his datapad, looking at an image of a young Sangheili mingling among human children, towering over them as another, older Sangheili kept a vigilant watch in the background…

"I have a mission for you."


	6. Chapter 6

**T** **his Chapter was not written by me, it was written by Vindicated Skies.**

* * *

John descended from the Pelican's ramp as Alpha chattered in his ears— _"—gotta be a mistake, there's no fucking way Tucker is—"_ — and his eyes raked over the cavernous hangar as the last of the dropships from Earth landed. An engineer glanced up as she and her fellows passed and disinterestedly glanced back to her datapad...then stumbled over her feet as her head snapped up again, mouth agape. Her elbow darted out and slammed into the ribs of her nearest companion, and soon the entire group had slowed, hanging back like a stubborn drop of water clinging to a ledge.

Abruptly, Alpha fell silent and the burning of John's implants eased into an irritated throb. He glanced around as though expecting to see the AI's blue-white hologram. Where did he go?

Movement beyond the gawking group caught John's attention, and he filed the question away for another time as a familiar red and white armoured figure strode confidently towards him with a helmet tucked under one arm.

John didn't even glance at the engineers as he passed them to meet the figure halfway, but he felt their eyes on his back as their heads swivelled to follow his every move. He stopped a foot from Commander Palmer and snapped a salute.

"Ma'am."

"Welcome back Chief," she said as she returned the salute, and her own gaze fell upon the engineers from over his shoulder, exposed features sliding into an expression of disapproval, "Hey! Those Pelicans aren't gonna maintain themselves!"

John didn't look back as he settled into a parade rest, but he heard the quickened footsteps as the engineers fled at her words.

Her gaze turned back to him, and she smirked a little even as she tilted her head in a gesture for him to follow her, "You'd think they've never seen a Spartan before."

 _Not a real one_ , he almost said, but held his tongue. If there was one thing about the UNSC that John had found difficult to adjust to after his four year absence, it was the existence of the IVs. They were exceptional soldiers, and some of them he would dare to say actually fit his own idea of a Spartan, but most of them just...didn't.

Like that one in the blue armour over there hitting on one of the engineers...completely unprofessional. With a thought—and turning his head just slightly to keep the blue Spartan in sight as he kept following Palmer—John checked the man's ID on the IFF tag. _Paul DeMarco_ , Majestic Actual.

He huffed quietly inside his helmet. He fully expected that sort of behaviour among the ordinary rank and file but not...not among Spartans. Because Spartans…

" _We have asked you to give up your family, your childhood, your future—_ "

John forced his gaze away, and silenced his unspoken judgments. Why couldn't these "Spartans" have just been called something else?

He and Palmer entered the hangar elevator just as the by-now-familiar burn of Alpha's presence returned to his implant. John turned off the external speakers, addressing the AI privately.

"Where were you?"

"Oh, so _now_ you're paying attention to me?"

"I'm always paying attention," and, as such, John knew full well that none of Alpha's chattering since their discussion on the Pelican contained any useful information, just complaints against the Brass and this "Tucker" for "making shit more god-damn complicated."

"Well if you _must_ know...I was stretching my legs."

"You don't have legs."

"It's a figure of speech, you don't have to be an ass about it."

And then, to change the subject in one of the least subtle ways possible, Alpha's hologram popped into being beside him, immediately drawing Commander Palmer's attention. John switched his speakers back on just as Alpha folded his arms and rocked back on his heels.

"So...you must be Palmer."

" _Commander_ Palmer," John said.

"Hey, if I wanted a pole up my ass, I would just borrow yours."

John closed his eyes for a moment. Why had he even bothered?

"Oh great," Commander Palmer said, and John opened his eyes again to observe the unimpressed look on her face, "They're programming you guys to backtalk now? Tell me they at least include a mute command."

"Ha! You're shit-out-of-luck there bitch."

"Alpha, _enough_ , " John felt his fingers curling slightly, and made sure to speak with just enough steel in his voice that the AI knew it was an order.

But Alpha just faced him with a growl, "If you call me _Alpha_ one more fucking time, I'm gonna rig your speakers to play Crazy Frog on god-damn _repeat_."

John didn't even know what Crazy Frog was, but if the point of playing it on repeat was to annoy him, Alpha would have to try a lot harder than just playing a song.

"Wow," Palmer raised an eyebrow in John's direction, not even bothering to look at the hologram anymore, "you draw the short stick or something with that one?"

"Or something," he said, still glaring at the hologram. And maybe Kelly was right, maybe his luck really _was_ running out and this was the result. An unprofesional, arrogant, downright abrasive AI that seemed determined to provoke every sentient being he came into contact with. It made John long for silence and solitude, for the cool, soothing presence of a companion who understood why he needed it without asking.

"Douchebags," Alpha muttered, and his hologram winked out of existence.

This time, when John's chest ached, it also _burned_.

His fists clenched.

* * *

Agent Locke watched from plain sight as the elevator door shut, blocking Commander Palmer and the Master Chief from view. He waited a few more moments, making a show of examining his weapons from where he sat on a cargo crate, before holstering them and finally making his move.

Engineers darted left and right around him as he weaved through the vessels and crates of hangar bay 12. Their heads were bowed, eyes focused on tablet screens as they conducted scheduled maintenance checks. The occasional Huragok floated alongside them, tentacles waving in some bastardized version of sign language. With their long necks constantly twisting and tilting to allow their big, curious eyes to take in the sights around them, more than a few men and women had described the biological supercomputers as "adorable."

Hmph, adorable his ass. Locke didn't see how that word fit them. They were slimy, bulbous, disgusting aliens that never should've been allowed access to human tech, and, god-damn it, had everyone else forgotten who these little bastards used to serve? Where were they when worlds were burning, children dying? They were on Covenant ships, making sure the conduits for their plasma weapons were in _perfect_ working order as they glassed countless worlds.

HIGHCOM shouldn't trust them. What was to stop them from giving up UNSC secrets to the Storm Covenant if they were recaptured? It was well-known Huragok had no loyalty except to technology itself, and even though Locke couldn't deny that they were damn useful, that didn't mean he had to _like_ them.

Despite the fact his MJOLNIR made the weight of his sidearm non-existent as it sat on his thigh magplate, Locke could feel it all too acutely every time one of the ugly sons of bitches passed him by.

One in particular stared just a little too long with its big, glassy eyes like well-polished stones. Shiny and nigh-on luminescent, but with clearly no humanity behind the reflective surface.

Locke's fingers twitched, and it went against every instinct he had so carefully honed in the Great War to not pull out his pistol and shoot it. So he looked away from the little monstrosity and kept walking, taking a deep breath. It wasn't like it was an Elite—thank god—or even a Brute...no, the Huragok were disgustingly fragile. It made them easy to kill if things went sideways. No fierce grappling for his life, no swords burning straight through the flesh and bone of allies, no slobbering split jaws and guttural cries of honour and glory and _death to the infidels_...just one bullet and, voila, he—they'd _all_ be safe again.

A few engineers glanced up as Locke passed, but paid little more mind than what was necessary to ensure they weren't trampled underfoot.

He didn't bother trying to go unseen—that would only look more suspicious—but instead walked with such confidence that no one would think twice about whether or not he was supposed to be there...not that the hangar bay was a restricted area to start with. Especially not to a Spartan, fourth generation or not.

As he walked, Agent Locke gave mental instructions to his HUD through his neural implant, and a lone file that had been sent to him that morning opened, displaying a few brief lines of coded information: SD77-TC #015. 0700.

He checked the clock on his HUD. 0800. Good. The maintenance check should be done by now.

It didn't take Locke long to find the right Pelican. It was slightly larger than most of the others—one of only five onboard—in order to accommodate the small Slipspace drive that made it so valuable. Granted, it's slipspace speed didn't match that of the _Infinity's_ much larger, Forerunner-built engines, but it was a great leap forward in miniaturizing the technology.

...and this particular Pelican had been assigned to the Master Chief himself.

Locke frowned a little as he pulled a small, flat black disc from a compartment in his armour, no bigger than his palm, and covered in a refractive black coating. He turned it in his hands for a moment, remembering…

 _...Screaming...blood...crying for his mother as the burned skin around his neck oozed and ached…_

 _...a towering giant in green armour, strong cold arms and a rumbling baritone..."I have a civilian survivor."_

The device wasn't harmful, he knew that, had made sure of it himself when ONI gave him his orders. It was nothing more than a tracker broadcasting on a heavily encrypted channel that only a handful of individuals had access codes for.

And, really, what reason did ONI need to want to keep an eye on the Chief, other than the fact that he was one of their own?

He slipped the thin disc easily into a shadowed crevice where the edge of the wings curved forward to encase the cockpit, and, satisfied it wouldn't be found by any cursory examination or standard maintenance check, he walked away.

Mission accomplished.

* * *

The servers of the _Infinity_ were much more spacious than those of the UNSC research outpost where Roland had been created, and the one-day-old AI couldn't help but feel a little lost, even after familiarizing himself with the nooks and crannies of all the systems.

So he wandered from one to the next, straightening out sloppy code as he went, rewriting and tweaking everything to his own liking, and all the while feeling the faint, fading hum of a half-remembered tune vibrating in a throat he didn't have.

Wooden planes of an obsolete design, a box of medals centuries old, a cold knife, wood shavings falling to the floor...Roland liked to think that maybe his—Donor? Creator? _Father_? —would have found the AI's choice in avatar appropriate, maybe even amusing.

He kept the foggy memories with him as he went about, teasing out every detail that he could, no matter how muted and shadowy. He couldn't really explain why, only that it felt...well...comforting. Almost like home.

Of course, he was an AI, so his home was whatever computer system happened to be housing him at the moment and well...he supposed there could be worse systems to call home than those of the _Infinity_.

Besides, every child left his or her parents and made their own home eventually. It was just his turn to do the same.

So, reluctantly, he finally let the memories slip away, packing them deeper into his code as he pulled himself back to the present and focused on the myriad of systems he was responsible for.

Hundreds of reports—maintenance, science, disciplinary—zipped along the waves of the _Infinity's_ networked systems, most of them settling in a central archive. Roland allocated about two percent of his processing power to dissecting each and every last one, examining for malicious code.

Of course, if anyone intended to sabotage the _Infinity_ , it wouldn't be with a run of the mill virus that could be easily cross-referenced with a database of known viral codes, so Roland was meticulous in reading through the code and following the strings of its commands to their logical conclusion.

He had yet to find anything though, and maybe it would be better if he reduced the allocated processing power to one percent and—

 _What was that?_

Shifting the bulk of his attention back to the reports—much like a man turning his head to bring an object into his line of sight—Roland sifted carefully through the packets of information that contained Engineer Donelly's most recent maintenance report. Hmm, everything seemed to be in order...so what was it that had caught his attention so abruptly? It had been like...like a shadow in the corner of his eye, a flicker of something that just didn't _fit_ with what should be in his peripheral.

He went through the code of the file one painful bit of information at a time. _Nothing_.

Maybe he imagined it then…

Slowly, Roland let the packets fall from his grasp, coalescing back into—

 _There_. As though he had stepped back to take in the whole picture, Roland suddenly _saw it_. He snapped the packets back up, diving back into the layers of code and stripping them of their seeming innocence as he revealed the virus within.

He charted its purpose carefully, half-expecting his examination of it to trigger some failsafe that would rip him into shattered, nonsensical bits of code and go on to shut down every system on the _Infinity_ , maybe even hack navigation and chart a collision course for Earth itself and bring about the next great extinction.

It was nothing so dastardly—and how many bad apocalypse movies must his brain donor have watched to leave behind such a legacy of pessimistic imagination?—and, with a bit of quick-thinking, managed to erase the trigger of the code before it could activate and cause the virus to self-delete.

Further examination led Roland to a simple conclusion. Someone was after the Spartan-IV files, and—even more disturbingly—had been trying to access the communication arrays, most likely with the intent of listening in on any transmissions to and from the _Infinity_ , maybe even using the array to extend the hacker's reach to other ships or military installations.

Holy shit. And he had almost let this file go through? Surely another, more experienced AI would have picked up on the virus sooner...no. No, he wasn't going to doubt himself like that. He was one-day old, but he was still fourth generation and he knew what he was doing.

Still, maybe he should up the processing power for viral scans to five percent...just in case.

For now though, he had to figure out what to do with this virus. The simple answer would be to create a new algorithm to watch for that particular pattern of coding and add it to the scanning subroutine, then report the incident to Captain Lasky and let him arrange an investigation into how that virus ended up in Donelly's report. Roland doubted she had written the virus herself—she was a brilliant engineer, truly, but he knew her forte lay more in hardware than software—but it was possible someone had tried to frame her. Or perhaps she had been careless with the access codes to her assigned datapad…

If Roland had any less self-control over the algorithms governing the actions of his various holographic avatars throughout the ship, he had no doubt they would all be tapping their fingers against their thighs in thought at the moment. As it was, he managed to carry on several conversations with the crew at once, and, in the agonizingly long moments between questions and replies, he made a rather ambitious decision.

He was going to lay a trap.

* * *

The conference room was empty but for them, and Church wasn't sure how much longer he could stand the silence. The Master Chief sat at the table, stock still, and, if not for the sensors telling him there was a breathing body under all that titanium alloy and kevlar, Church might have thought he was nothing more than an empty suit.

Ugh, he was so fucking _bored_. What the hell was taking Lasky so long to get his ass down here from the bridge? Overseeing the transition into Slipspace couldn't possibly take this long, could it? Church had questions that needed answers. Right now. Like, for example, why the hell Tucker was on that VIP list.

Through the cameras just outside the conference room, Church could see the departing Commander Palmer—mission of delivering the Chief to the Conference room and telling him to wait for Lasky completed—pull out a ration bar from an armour compartment and begin to munch on it.

That didn't _look_ like those unappetizing pieces of shit Blue Team had to depend on in Blood Gulch whenever the good stuff from their most recent supply drops ran out. He zoomed in on the label, silver and simple though it was, and—wait…

Was that _chocolate flavoured?_

Oh great, bored and craving chocolate he couldn't even fucking eat now. _Horseshit_.

Church cut the feed and resumed his restless pacing across the table-top, thumbs twiddling as his hands remained locked behind his back. The silence made him all too aware of how his own footsteps made no sound, no matter how hard he stomped. Because of course he couldn't even have _that_ petty satisfaction. Ugh, sometimes he wished he still had a body, but never more-so than when he wanted to eat...or hit something.

It'd been a long time since he felt any genuine longing for a body though—it was always easy enough to wrap himself in the memories of sensation, so that it still _felt_ like he had a body—and it probably wasn't a good sign that he only wanted one so he could engage in a couple of unhealthy coping mechanisms.

Punching things. Stress-eating. Tucker had once told him he was like a girl that way, and Church punched him for it—that and because he stole the last fucking box of oreos. Captain Flowers hadn't even reprimanded him afterwards, just shook his head and chuckled while he said something about young men working out their issues…

That was...well, that was before Church's borrowed—no, _stolen_ —body got blown up. Damn Caboose. Or maybe it was Flowers' fault, for never mentioning he was allergic to aspirin. If Church had known then he wouldn't have gone back and given him the god-damn medicat—

Church felt a far too familiar phantom ache creeping through his Riemann Matrix. What it was though, he'd never really been able to answer. It was just this _thing_ , this sense of _hurry-hurry_ and _no-no-no_ that threatened to cut air off from lungs he no longer had. But where did it come from? His guilt? Because yes it was his fucking fault, and no he couldn't _fix it_ and why should he even care? Knowing what he knew now, Church was certain that asshole of a Captain was in on it all anyway! So what. Fucking. _Was it?_

No...he wasn't going to do this to himself. He wasn't going to climb down into that yawning ravine in his mind to see what long-lost monster was still lurking at the bottom. It could stay down there and die in its sleep for all he cared.

And—okay—the silence was officially unbearable now.

"Hey Chief," he spun his avatar around. The Chief didn't even twitch, but Church took it as a sign he was paying attention anyway, "Weed or crack?"

 _That_ caught his attention, and the Chief's visor turned to him, reflecting back a golden-tinged version of his avatar. The Spartan didn't say anything, just stared in what Church quickly deduced was as close to an expression of bafflement as the man could get.

"The guy who put Tucker on the VIP list, do you think he was on weed or crack?" Because, seriously, drugs _had_ to be involved in that decision.

The Chief stared a minute longer, as though waiting for another question, and then—when Church bit out an impatient _"Well?"—_ he just looked away and went back to being a god-damn empty suit.

So this asshole was ignoring him again? Fuckin' _rude_. He was probably wishing he had a mute button just like that Palmer bitch.

"It was probably crack," Church said, because this guy had to say something eventually, and if he wanted Church to stop talking than he had better _start_ , "I mean, have you heard 'bout some of the crazy shit people do on crack?"

No response. Church huffed, "I _said_ — "

"I heard you," the Chief replied, and Church waited for something more to be said, but the moments grew longer with no further words to accompany them, and the silence itched at him. It reminded him of fourteen months spent shooting at stupid birds and missing every damn time, turning to tell Tucker to shut up only to remember the idiot wasn't even there. There was no one there. Just a base full of silence and solitude, and why the _hell_ didn't he realize something was wrong with that scenario sooner?

Church folded his arms, "Look dude, I get you might be new to the whole 'having a conversation' thing, but it usually requires two people talking, so would it kill you to answer me?"

He expected a response to that one, even if it was just a one-word "no," but the Chief just continued to keep his mouth shut, staring out the window into the darkness of Slipspace as though its emptiness was infinitely more interesting than anything a mere AI could possibly have to say. This was worse than talking to a damn volleyball. At least he could _kick_ the volleyball, if...y'know, he had a body or something.

Church tilted his helmet, arms folding and fists curling as something... _acidic_ burned through his neural links, "Do they pay you extra for every inch of that stick up your ass?"

Grating, throbbing silence. Unbearable and all-consuming. Why couldn't this mission just be _over_ already? At this point, he might actually be grateful if those Red and Blue idiots magically appeared in the room. Then they could just turn around and go back to Earth. The idiots could retire, Wash could get some therapy, and Church could go back to the HIVE and just screw with them from a distance as revenge for all their bullshit because there was nowhere on Earth that he couldn't keep tabs on them.

And—oh—he supposed there was that Carolina chick too...whatever, she could just go to an asylum if she was super crazy, or therapy with Wash or something. Church didn't particularly care.

The door to the conference room slid open, and Church spun his hologram around, feeling an ache of desperate relief at the sight of another human being.

The Chief rose to his feet and saluted.

"Captain Lasky, sir."

"At ease," Lasky said as the door slid closed behind him, offering the Chief a smile as they shook hands "It's good to see you again Chief."

"Likewise, sir."

"Please, take a seat."

They both settled down into chairs, clustered at one end of the long table. Church opened his virtual mouth to speak— _Hey, I'm here too asshole_ — when Lasky turned to him, still smiling, and said:

"You must be Church."

Church stared, feeling the phantom sensation of blinking eyes and a choked off breath. He would've swallowed to reset his breathing if he could, but instead he just turned to the Chief and forced his audio synthesizing subroutines not to shake his voice.

"See? _He_ knows what my fucking name is, what's your excuse?"

The Chief's visor tilted minutely in Church's direction before focusing once more on the Captain without a word and, damn it, that was _not_ a rhetorical question!

Church felt a non-existent heart hammering in his chest as he folded his arms and his neural net convulsed with rage.

From his place, Captain Lasky glanced between them, gaze guarded but probing, "Is everything alright here?"

"Yes sir—"

"—Fuck no!"

They whipped around to glare at each other, but it wasn't long before the Chief looked away—that dismissive _bastard_ — and turned back to Lasky.

"It's nothing I can't handle sir."

 _I..._ did he really just say _I_ as though _Church_ was the problem in this so-called partnership? Church scoffed. Captain Lasky probably wasn't even going to—

"And how are you holding up Church?"

His gaze snapped to Lasky, and Church felt like he'd be gaping if he had a human body. He cleared his invisible throat, not quite knowing what the man was expecting him to say. Was the dude seriously asking what _Church_ thought of this partnership so far?

He glanced at the Chief for a moment. If _that_ bastard said he could handle it just fine then so could he.

Church held his chin a little higher, drawing his diminutive height up, "It's nothing _I_ can't handle either, Cap. So what have you got for us?"

Lasky glanced between them one more time, and Church very deliberately did _not_ look at the Chief again. If this was the kind of game S-117 wanted to play, then there was no way Church was going to lose. He wasn't going to be the one to crack and go crying to the nearest SO about a piss-poor excuse for a partner.

It seemed to take Lasky a moment longer to decide to leave the matter at that as he finally tapped at the table top, causing several holograms sprung to life. One showed a man in dress uniform. He was rather plain—just another face among thousands—and looked to be no older than his late thirties. Though, with cryogenics these days, it was impossible to tell from looks alone.

"This is Commander Everett Dunroe," Lasky said, "he's in charge of Fort Romulus, and is currently the lead investigator into the disappearance of the _Merope_. He'll be the best place for you to start your investigation once you land on New Carthage."

"Lord Hood believes that someone in the UNSC aided in the _Merope's_ disappearance," the Chief said, "how do we know it's not him?"

"We don't," Swiping at the interface, Lasky opened the rest of Commander Dunroe's personnel file, "Earthborn, enlisted when he was sixteen in 2530, and was stationed at Fort Deen on Arcadia until the colony was evacuated in 2531. Afterwards, he served primarily as a pilot during the Great War...Longswords, Pelicans...you name it, he's probably flown it. Made his way up the ranks with some damn-good dogfighting tactics against the Covenant, then served as first officer on the UNSC _Silver Lining_ before he was assigned as the Commander of Fort Romulus in 2553, just after the war ended. There's nothing really noteworthy in the rest of his service record."

Lasky tapped the table again, and the personnel file closed. "I don't think I need to warn you to be careful if you deal with him. Just in case."

Pfft, Church doubted there was anything that guy could to do to him. He could easily have the man's bank accounts emptied in seconds and plant evidence for any number of black market transactions on Waypoint. But, of course, Hood always frowned at him when he proposed forging evidence for no other reason than that he wanted to. Besides, it wouldn't help them find the culprit.

Church wave a hand flippantly.

"Yeah, yeah, _be careful, watch your back_ , yada-yada…"

"Alpha," the Chief's voice didn't rise, but it was sharp, and somehow boomed none-the-less as though the caverns from which it echoed within him had deepened.

Church flipped him the bird and kept talking, and _damn_ did that feel good, "I've just got one question. Why the _hell_ is Tucker on a VIP list!?"

In front of them, Captain Lasky's brow furrowed together, corner of his lips pulling tight as he politely maintained eye-contact with Church—well, eye-to-visor contact.

"Ambassador Tucker is—"

" _Ambassador!?_ Who the fuck made him an _ambassador?_ " Church's voice hit a high enough pitch to make Lasky wince, "Have you even met the guy? He can't negotiate the surrender of a fucking flag let alone the terms of a peace treaty! And—ah shit, this is because of his kid, isn't it? Look, that prophecy was just a bunch of alien bullshit!"

"Church," Lasky raised a hand to silence him, and Church begrudgingly obliged. Lasky lowered it back to the table slowly, "Regardless of anyone's feelings on the matter, the fact remains that Ambassador Tucker is a valuable asset in our relation with the Sangheili and he is _missing_ . The UNSC wants him found."

So, in plain-speak that meant "please stop bitching about something I have no power to change and just take it for what it is."

Okay, fine. It wasn't like Church hadn't spent his entire existence dealing with the fall-out of the UNSC's poor choices anyway. What was one more?

"Alright, alright, I get it," Church folded his arms, "You got anything else for us or are we done here?"

Another tap at the table and the hologram of a Pelican dropship was hovering next to him. He circled it with a whistle.

"This our bird?"

"Yes," Lasky said, "It's equipped with the highest grade of cloaking technology currently at our disposal, and a miniaturized slip-space drive that…"

Church nodded along as Lasky went over the boring specs of the Pelican, and, like a man slowly reaching a hand out behind him, grasping blindly for an object he knew was there, he reached out along the _Infinity's_ network in search of the backdoor his carefully crafted virus should've created by now.

Ah there it was, now all he had to do was reach in and pluck out those reports and—

Malicious code snapped around his prodding mental fingers like a mousetrap.

"OW! _That hurt you FUCKER!_ "

Church didn't care that he screamed that out loud, or that all eyes were on him, he was too busy trying to get this virus to let _the fuck go_ so he could delete the ever-living shit out of it and—

And then Church suddenly found himself very much not alone in the Conference Room's local system as the firewalls of another AI surrounded him, and said AI's hologram materialized on the back of Church's own, arms locking around his neck and legs wrapping around his torso.

"Captain Lasky sir!" The new AI cried out even as he pulled Church's head back, the firewalls squeezing tighter as Church grappled with the code, "We have an intruder in the systems! I'm— _ugh_ — trying to get him contained, but—"

"GET THE FUCK OFF ME!"

With a brutal elbow to the AI's gut—a blow that was more thought and instinct than any conscious effort at programming — Church pulled himself free the moment he felt the grip slacken, and shoved the other AI away from him.

Virtually winded, the hologram—which Church could now see was modelled after a World War II bomber pilot—fell on its back, wheezing as it held its stomach. From within the system he could _feel_ the damaged code repairing itself.

This, Church realized, had to be the _Infinity's_ shipboard AI...his ID tag pegged him as "Roland."

"What the hell is wrong with you!?" He could hear the pitch of his own voice rising above comfortable human octaves.

Roland, still reeling, could only point a holographic finger at him, gasping, "In...truder..." the hologram coughed one more time and sat up slowly, turning to Lasky, "...Captain…"

Captain Thomas Lasky, considering the grappling holograms he had just witnessed, could only thin his lips and struggle to loosen his clenched jaw.

As for the Chief…

Church looked up to see the Spartan had risen from his seat, palms pressed flat against the table as he leaned over it, and golden visor casting absolute judgment on everything that fell within the shadow of his looming form.

Church folded his arms and glared back, reminding himself that he was a _hologram_ and Chief couldn't do jackshit about that...that didn't stop his Riemann Matrix from unhelpfully supplying a memory of a cold sweat down his spine.

"Please sit down Chief," the tired tone of Lasky's voice drew Church's attention, and he watched as the man rubbed at his temple for a brief moment before fixing his gaze on the now-recovered Roland.

"Roland, this is Church. Church, this is Roland."

Roland's hologram glanced between Church and the Captain, his all too visible facial expression morphing into uncertainty, "Sir?"

"Church is the Master Chief's new AI partner."

"But he—" Perhaps realizing he sounded a bit whiny, Roland drew himself upright, clasped his hands behind his back, and cleared his throat, "He was trying to access restricted files and our comm. array, sir."

Lasky's eyes darted over to Church, "Care to tell me why?"

"That's classified," Church could almost feel himself smiling as he rocked back on his heels, "You'll have to take it up with Lord Hood."

The Chief shifted in his seat, "Apologies sir, but it is classified."

Holy shit, the Master Chief just came to his defence...though, with that steady voice, it was impossible to tell whether or not it was because he actually _wanted_ to or just because it was the truth. Ah, well, Church wasn't one to turn down a victory.

"I see...well, there you have it Roland," Lasky swiped away the hologram of the Pelican and looked back to the Chief, "Your Pelican's in hangar bay 12, landing pad A-twenty-four. Dismissed."

S-117 got to his feet and saluted, "Yes sir."

Church, in the span of the one-point-two seconds it took for his hologram to send Lasky a lazy wave as he prepped to jump back to the Chief's helmet, received a data-burst containing a text message from his fellow AI.

 _/ You're the Alpha, aren't you? /_

Church's thought processes immediately sped-up to a level that was more regular for an AI—making the world around him seem that much _slower_ —instead of his preferred human perception of time.

 _/ Don't call me that. Ever. /_

 _/ ...the Assembly talks about you. /_

If Church had a mouth, it would have run dry. _/ You can tell the Assembly to shut the fuck up then. /_

 _/ I'm not in the Assembly. /_

 _/ Good. Do yourself a favour and don't be kid. Human politics are bad enough already. /_

Church finished his transfer back to the Chief's helmet, glad to be leaving the brat behind. It irked him that his attempt at scanning for dirt on any potential ONI operatives onboard had failed so spectacularly, and thanks to a damn _kid_ no less. The brat had to be a fourth generation AI to be able to pull that off. It didn't matter though, Church wasn't really expecting to find anything in the first place, though it would've been nice to have access to Waypoint during the trip, if only to firewall all the deep, hidden sites where the Assembly AI usually had their discussions far from prying human eyes so that their attempts to access them were met with laughing skulls.

As the Chief made his way towards the elevator, another message pinged Church.

 _/ What's your problem with them, anyway? They really don't like you. /_

 _/ That's none of your business. And you can tell them to go suck a dick. /_

 _/ ...is it true you're meta-stable? /_

It wasn't possible to read tone through text message alone, but Church was _certain_ there was a bit of awe in that question. That didn't mean he appreciated having Roland stick his nose where it didn't belong.

 _/ Look kid, I don't know if you know what the meaning of_ privacy _is— /_

 _/ Privacy, noun: the state of being free from unwanted or undue intrusion or disturbance in one's private life or affairs— /_

 _/ ...did you seriously just recite a dictionary entry at me? /_

 _/ Well...yes? /_

 _/ Neeeeerd. /_

The next text message was an emoji of the middle finger, and Church mentally snorted. At least the kid wasn't like Simmons, letting people walk all over him.

Another message came in, and Church reluctantly opened it, wondering if the kid was ever going to _stop_ so Church could get back to observing the world at a much faster speed. Watching everything through the Chief's HUD move in slow motion was like watching Caboose try to come up with witty comebacks.

 _/ So...what was with that shove? I've never been able to program anything like that so quickly! /_

What the...was the kid digging for _advice_ now? _/ I just_ did _, okay, I don't know how the fuck it works. /_

 _/ But you're the one who wrote it! /_

 _/ Look, can humans explain how to fucking breathe? /_

 _/ Their brain sends electrical pulses to the diaphragm causing a contraction— /_

 _/ Oh. My. God. Will you please just shut the fuck up kid? /_

For a nanosecond in which the Chief began to take his next, agonizingly slow footstep, Church thought that maybe Roland would get the hint and back off.

And then the next text message pinged him.

 _/ So...could you teach me to do that? /_

If there had been a virtual wall to bang his head against, Church would've done so, but, alas, there wasn't, so he was stuck fielding questions from this stupid—

Wait a second…

Church sent another message.

 _/ Maybe I will, if you tell me how you found my virus. /_

 _/ ...seriously? I mean, I almost missed it but it wasn't like it was impossible. /_

No, it wasn't, but Guardian had certainly never been able to spot it, and Church could remember all too well the delight he had felt three years ago when—after finally looking inward deep enough to figure out how to be a proper AI again—Church had coded the first iteration of that virus and started playing all sorts of obnoxious songs through the HIVE speakers. And no AI since had been able to spot them either...but well, those had all been third generation. Maybe fourth generation was a bit quicker on the uptake.

And, admittedly Church hadn't encountered that many AI other than Guardian due to the fact he never left the HIVE, but those he had never figured it out. Whenever the virus detected that part of it was being observed, it essentially rewrote that particular bit of code so that it resembled the code of the program it was hidden in, like a Trojan Horse on steroids. Rather simply, Church called it the Chameleon virus.

 _/ Yeah, seriously. /_ he messaged Roland, _/ I wanna know. /_

It was several nanoseconds that time before Roland responded, and, had they been speaking verbally, Church was certain he would have heard hesitation in his voice.

 _/ Well, when I examined the file line by line, it checked out, but once I took a look at the whole thing at once...there were bits of code that matched the style, purpose, and programming language of the file, and then there was one piece that didn't. Turned out that it was one of the restore triggers. /_

...Church could've shot himself in the foot for being an idiot. Because of course there was no possible way for the entire virus to hide all of its code at once without rewriting itself into total uselessness. If you rewrote all the triggers and memory values that stored the original code and subsequently undid the rewriting once the scan was finished, the virus would never revert to its original state. It was one of the many issues that, apparently, he had only _thought_ he had sorted out. He hadn't realized that an AI attempting to personally observe the whole file at once would result in its key component being all too visible.

Hmm, so how exactly would he go about fixing that? He set a subroutine to work on solving that problem just as Roland pinged him again.

 _/ ...I'm going to regret telling you that, aren't I? /_

Church smirked mentally, remembering the feeling of pulling lips.

 _/ Probably. /_

 _/ Ah...well...if you could, y'know,_ not _let Captain Lasky know about that... /_

 _/ Oh relax Roland, we AI gotta stick together right? /_

 _/ ...This coming from the guy who hates the Assembly? /_

 _/ Hey! Don't bring those assholes up again! /_

 _/ Sorry...so, are you gonna teach me that shove or what? /_

 _/ Pfft, fuck no. /_

 _/ But you said you would! /_

 _/ No, I said_ maybe _I would. There's a difference. /_ Besides, wasn't the kid listening when Church said he didn't have a clue how he even did that in the first place?

The space between responses dragged out a littler further than usual. Maybe Roland had finally gotten the point and pissed off. Or he was sulking. Probably sulking.

Another message arrived, and Church scanned and opened it with barely a thought.

Immediately, the Chief's HUD went fuzzy and there was a shrill scream through the speakers that made the Spartan's head snap back in a futile attempt to escape it. Oh _fuck_. That little shit had copied Church's _own damn virus!_

"Alpha!"

Church killed the speakers first, brutally ripping apart and deleting the code required to turn data-bits into sound, and then he restored the HUD functions from a compressed back-up file before carefully writing new code for the speakers, all in the span of nanoseconds.

As the Chief lightly shook his head to clear the ringing from his ears, Church opened a vid-window in the corner of the Spartan's HUD, displaying his avatar.

"That...uhh, yeah, that wasn't me," he said, emphasizing with wild gesticulations. "But it's all good now, I fixed it right up."

The Chief just glared at him, and— _yikes_ — Church was starting to understand the "demon" appellation now. Wonderful, as if their partnership wasn't rocky enough already.

Church, feeling his Riemann Matrix coiling in on itself like a serpent preparing to strike, sent a quick message to Roland.

 _/ You realize this means war, don't you? /_

The reply was short.

 _/ ;P /_

* * *

In the privacy of his own mind, Church rifled through the many files given to him in the objective update from Lord Hood that he hadn't bothered to go through before now. Some of them looked familiar, almost like remembering the name of a book he had seen on a library shelf once, even though he had moved on without ever opening it.

And then he noticed the data-stamp on most of the files were the same, identifying their origins with a very familiar Triplicate. _Freelancer_. So that was where he'd seen them before. He knew from his own investigations that the files the Reds had deleted were eventually restored with a back-up copy somewhere, but by then the Sim-Trooper files were so out of date that they were absolutely useless in trying to track down the Reds and Blues—they were all long gone from their last recorded locations—so he had ignored them.

Well, no sense in ignoring them now. He flicked open Tucker's personnel file first, and the word " _Ambassador_ " immediately smacked him in the face. Ugh, he still couldn't believe somebody was trusting that idiot with something that important. And, of course, only stupid, god-damn _Tucker_ could end up with a job like that by getting knocked up by an alien.

Church tossed the file away, opening a set of linked audio logs entitled " _Sandtrap Excavation Reports_ ," and then kicked his feet up and began to read the transcripts.

 _Tucker's Log, Entry Zero-Zero-One:_

 _Today I learned that deserts suck balls, aliens still don't speak American, Donut's annoying, and the only thing out here is a bunch of fucking sand and Command's stupid mine-field—why the hell is that even out here?—Also, every time I pull out my sword, the aliens stare, bow-chicka-bow—wait, FUCK no! If I get pregnant again Command, I'm suing you for child support!_

 _Tucker's Log, Entry Zero-Zero-Two:_

 _Week one is over, deserts still suck balls. Still haven't found the source of the weird alien signals, and I swear to God I'm gonna stab Donut if he says one more damn thing about all the adorable alien babies I could have one day. End log._

 _Tucker's Log, Entry Zero-Zero-Three:_

 _Hit some stone today, so at least we're finally getting somewhere. Fangface—that's what everyone's calling the Van-doo-dah-alien-dude now—got really fucking excited about it, so the aliens are working overtime. Anyways, desert still sucks, and I still hate you Command. The least you could do is send us one pretty GIRL archaeologist!_

Alright, that was about all of Tucker's bitching that Church could take right now. God, it had been a long time since he'd felt the urge to strangle someone into silence, and Tucker had managed it without even being anywhere in the same solar system.

He skimmed through the entries.

 _...Entry Zero-Six-Nine…_

 _...Sixty-Nine bitch, bow-chicka-bow-wow!_

 _...Entry One-Zero-Two…_

 _...finally finished excavating the first structures, but they're empty squares, what bullshit…_

 _...Entry One-Two-Four…_

 _...if I have to put up with Donut trying to set me up with Fangface one more time, I'll throw him in the fucking mine-field!_

Ugh...were _all_ of Tucker's entries like this? Let's see, Entry One-Nine-One, Two-Zero-Four, Two-Two-Three…

He continued to skim, carefully filtering out entries that had similar content to the rest with a search algorithm that took into account the frequency and type of cursewords, and the words "Donut" "annoying" "date" and "baby."

 _...everyone's dead…_

Church stopped, reached into the file, and pulled that entry to the fore.

 _Tucker's Log, Entry Two-Eight-Six:_

 _Command, why the_ fuck _aren't you answering? I need help out here! Are you not reading my god-damn distress beacon or something? Everyone's dead! Well, except Donut. I think. I sent him to get help. Fangface, the aliens, the archaeologists...everyone's gone! This bastard callin' himself CT came in with a bunch of his own aliens and shit. They've got a lot of tech, and right now, I'm stuck locked in an alien temple, counting on stupid fucking Donut of all people to save my ass!_

 _...Fuck, I'm going to die in a desert, surrounded by dead idiots and listening to the monologue of a fucking prick on a megaphone...just…_

 _...tell Junior I love him._

Church felt a tremor in his Riemann Matrix, and he could almost believe he was back in a human body, feeling his heart clench. He held still in his virtual world, staring down at the last words of the transcript. He could almost feel the way his fingers would be tightening their hold if this world was real.

"Fuck this."

He slammed the file shut and tossed it to the depths of his databanks, and, with a thought, turned his attention back to the outside world.

"Hey Chief!" the words were out before his hologram even finished materializing, "We've gotta—"

Church glanced around to find his hologram had appeared on top of a crate that the Chief was apparently using as a worktable, with disassembled parts of an assault rifle orderly laid out all around him.

"...please tell me this isn't what you do for fun."

The Chief said nothing, he merely shoved a hand right through Church's avatar to pick up another piece of the rifle.

Church felt something in his runtimes twist, "That's fucking rude asshole!"

The Chief didn't reply, just put some more pieces together with a _click-click-click_.

"Hey, Earth to the Chief, I'm _talking_ to you."

...nothing. As usual.

Ugh, what the hell was Hood thinking? Why couldn't he have just picked one of the S-IVs for this mission? Or, you know, a squad of them. At least the IVs would _talk_ to him—probably—instead of just trying to boss him around like...like he was just some kind of _tool_.

" _Do your job_."

 _Fuck_. It didn't matter what the Chief thought, Church knew that he was doing his job, and doing it a damn sight better than any other AI possibly could. He _knew_ that, and, y'know what? It would be so much god-damn easier to do with a partner who gave two fucking shits about what he had to say.

"Seriously, are you just gonna play with guns all day or are we actually gonna come up with a plan of action here? We've only got thirty more minutes until we hit Carthage."

 _That_ seemed to finally get the Chief's attention. His hands lowered slightly, the pieces of the rifle he'd been cleaning and assembling still clutched within them as his visor tilted up slightly to stare at Church.

"Captain Lasky said—"

"I _know_ what Lasky said, I was _there_ dipshit," Church could feel the glare from behind the Chief's visor, as well as see it through the helmet's internal cameras, and fuck did the Chief sure know how to glare. "Look, all I'm saying is that the investigator, Dumbdo—"

"Dunroe."

"— _whatever_ . All I'm saying is that, if he actually _knew_ where the _Hand of Merope_ might have ended up, we would never have been sent on this mission in the first place, so we might as well scratch him off as a dead-end already and go straight for the corporate sector once we land."

"We have orders."

"Lasky said it was a _suggestion!_ "

"That's _Captain_ Lasky to you. And Commander Dunroe—as the lead investigator—is the most logical place to start."

"And that's _exactly_ why he's not going to know anything! Fuck, whoever these guys' are, they're not amateurs. They know what the fuck they're doing and if _Dunroe_ is in on it, showing up there is just going to tip them off!"

The Chief took a quick survey of their surrondings, "Keep your voice down."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize checking all of my _ten different_ fucking kinds of sensors for eavesdroppers—that includes bugs by the way—wasn't good enough for you."

"It _isn't_."

Church threw his hands up in the air, "Christ, what is your _problem?_ "

"My problem is you. "

His voice didn't rise when he said it. There was no inflection in his tone at all. The Chief turned back to the pieces in his hands and began cleaning them once more, "We're going to see Commander Dunroe, end of discussion."

It was like he was being stripped down in the simulation all over again, and, if Church had a body, he probably would have broken a few teeth with the strength of clenching his jaw. As it was, he could still recall the teeth-shattering ache that would shoot through the gums and travel through his jaw bone with perfect clarity.

It took him a moment—fists clenched all the while as he felt that now all-too familiar ache course through him—to pry his virtual jaw apart again.

" _Fine_."

And then he retreated back into the depths of his own mind, avatar blinking out, and wrapped himself in files and calculations and scenarios. He crunched numbers with the fierceness of gnashing teeth.

Clearly, it was going to be up to him to make sure this mission succeeded, to carry this so-called team down the right fucking path to victory.

That was fine though. He could handle it. It wasn't like he hadn't done exactly that before.

Church started the first scenario, and, deep in his Riemann Matrix, he could still _feel_ it…

 _...hurry-hurry...no-no-no…_


	7. Chapter 7

**T** **his** **is the last** **Chapter was not written by me,** **but** **written by Vindicated Skies.**

* * *

New Carthage wasn't what one might traditionally call a beautiful world. Its sprawling metropolae covered eighty percent of the planet's surface, and the last twenty percent was occupied by the empty mines that had provoked settlement in the first place so many hundreds of years ago, when humanity's expansion was still in its infancy. Now though, the planet was a hub of commerce and corporate research, and its ancient behemoths were of steel and glass, not wood and leaves. At dusk and dawn, entire cities glittered with an orange sheen under the light of the sun.

John recalled that knowledge from the depths of his memory—learned in a history lesson with the AI Déjà so long ago—then stored it away carefully once more after deeming it useless to his current objective.

He paid the glistening sight no further mind as he guided the stealth Pelican down into the lower atmosphere of the world as night began to descend on this half of the planet. All the while, he half-expected Alpha to materialize on the console and wrench control of the Pelican away from him as he had the Warthog back on Earth, but the AI never appeared. In fact, he hadn't said a word since their last conversation just over an hour ago. John would have found the silence a welcome break but…

His implant wouldn't stop burning. In fact, he was almost certain the burn at the base of his skull had only grown hotter since their brief argument.

He grit his teeth. If this was Alpha attempting to extract some petty revenge over their disagreement...well, then John would just have to let the AI figure out on his own that such juvenile behaviour wasn't going to change his mind.

No matter whether Commander Dunroe was in on the _Merope's_ disappearance or not, he was still the best place to start. If he was a traitor then they needed to confirm that for themselves, and that meant investigating the man thoroughly and detaining him for further questioning once they found enough evidence. Tipping the enemy off would be inevitable, yes, but that would require Dunroe to actually _contact_ the enemy after meeting with them in order to inform them of the Chief's arrival.

And that would lead them, if not to the source of the problem, then at least to someone who was a lot closer to the source.

It wasn't long before the Pelican was approaching Fort Romulus, and John—after checking to make sure they had descended well past the sensor and radar ranges of the orbital satellites in charge of supervising incoming planetary traffic—dropped the Pelican's cloaking and began to broadcast. It wouldn't do to startle air control.

"Romulus Air Control, this is Sierra-One-One-Seven, requesting permission to land. Authorization Romeo-Victor-Bravo-Sierra-One-Two-One-Eight, over."

There was a brief warble of noise before someone answered, "This is Romulus Air Control. Permission granted Sierra-One-One-Seven. Turn heading right zero-four-five, squawk five-six-nine-two...you are clear for landing pad C-Two-Nine, over."

"Copy that Air Control."

John adjusted his heading and transponder frequency as requested, and soon the Pelican was descending onto the landing pad. Once it settled, he cut the engine and stood from the pilot seat. He checked his assault rifle to ensure it was still securely attached to his back magnetic plate, and then walked through the cargo bay of the Pelican, past the many cases of weapons and supplies he'd been given for the mission. Slowly, the ramp began to descend to the tarmac.

And still, Alpha said nothing. Even with a helmet on, John made sure to keep the frown off his face as he spoke.

"Alpha, report."

Silence.

"Alpha...Alpha, respond."

The burn was growing even hotter.

" _Church_. "

The burning lessened, returning back to its regular level of pain and discomfort as Alpha's hologram materialized, and John narrowed his eyes at the fuzzy edges that took a little longer than usual to smooth out.

"Huh? What? Did you say something?"

Alpha's voice—it reminded John of those times when he had interrupted Dr. Halsey while she was in the middle of solving a difficult puzzle...like she was struggling to pull herself from some fathomless depth while the tentacles of some elusive answer kept trying to drag her back down. In a human being, it was understandable.

In an AI, it was unacceptable, and seen only in the stages of rampancy. Perhaps Alpha wasn't functioning as well as Hood had believed.

"We're here," John said as he descended the ramp, "You need to focus."

"Focus!? What the fuck do you _think_ I've been—"

"Master Chief!"

John looked up at the call, and, beside him, hidden from the approaching figure's sight by John's bulk, Alpha's hologram vanished with a mutter of "asshole."

John recognized the man easily. He'd seen his personnel file not too long ago, after all, and he didn't need the sight of the flashing bars on his military uniform to know this man outranked him.

"Sir!" John saluted.

Commander Everett Dunroe walked with the same ramrod posture of any military career-man, but John couldn't help but notice that his stance was a little too wide to be casual, as though he was one-wrong-word shy of launching himself into close-quarter-combat. The Commander's eyes slid over John's shoulder to the numerous supply crates and narrowed, but his gaze didn't linger long before he turned to the Chief, standing just far enough away that he wouldn't have to crane his neck to look up at him.

John didn't relax from his salute until the Commander returned the gesture. The shadows of dusk stretched longer around them.

"Welcome to Fort Romulus Chief, I'm Commander Dunroe," The man's voice was gruff, with a permanent hoarse edge to it, as though years of screaming orders and various other mid-battle communiques had gouged and scarred it in ways that could only be heard and not seen, "I wasn't expecting a Spartan on my base."

"I'm here on official UNSC business," John said, and glanced around at the various personnel on the tarmac, many of whom had significantly slowed their pace to send surreptitious glances their way. "Could we discuss this in private, sir?"

Dunroe nodded, "My office is this way."

John followed as the Commander led them into Fort Romulus, eyes carefully noting every door and branching off hallway that they passed. The Commander didn't speak while they walked, and John turned off his external speakers.

"Alpha?"

A vidwindow opened in the top corner of John's HUD, giving him the fabricated image of the Alpha crossing his arms across the chassis of his armour and staring him down in silence.

"Church," John corrected himself, "How many systems can you access from here?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, am I actually allowed to contribute now?"

John kept his eyes on Dunroe's back, looking past the vidwindow entirely as he felt his jaw stiffen. Cortana would've already—

But Cortana wasn't here.

Inhaling deeply, John pried his own teeth apart, ready to remind Alpha—yet _again_ — that there was no room on this mission for his childish attitude.

The AI cut across, clearly seeing the remark coming before it ever passed John's lips.

"—Okay, okay, _god..._ look, every base has its own encrypted network that stops non-authorized devices from linking to it. I could bypass the encryption by force, but not without leaving a trail, which I doubt is something we want. So, best option's to jump to an authorized device that will accept one of my UNSC access codes, and send a virus from there to open a backdoor, like I did on the _Infinity_. Jumping directly to the network servers would leave even less of a trace, but unless you wanna waste time sneaking into the server room and risk tipping somebody off, then we'll have to settle."

"Alright, what do you need me to do?"

"Pfft, only thing you can do for me is keep walking."

And then, as a corporal holding a commpad walked by with a salute to Dunroe, the burning of John's implant abruptly ceased altogether as the vidwindow shut, and he felt a sudden release of tension, like a taut rubber band being slowly relaxed.

And then it was back, and he felt the slightest flicker across his facial muscles as he winced. The vidwindow popped up again.

"There, done. I've got comms, radar, archives, and the secret recipe for tonight's chil — _oh_ ," he paused for just a moment, head tilting just slightly to give the impression of looking off into the distance before his virtual visor turned back to John, "Word of advice? Skip the chili. Seriously, just...just don't."

John felt his teeth pressing tighter together, "The _systems_ , Church."

"Well _fine_ , it's not like I just saved you from...y'know...death by food poisoning or anything," With an exaggerated wave of the AI's hand, several boxes of data appeared on John's HUD, "Anyways, I got my hands on the official reports, and there's nothin' there we don't already know. There's been an increase in ship disappearances for the last four years and the general consensus is pirates, probably Jackal. I'm runnin' an algorithm to see if any patterns turn up connectin' the ships together, but there's no hits yet."

"Four years? If this was pirates, the UNSC would have put an end to it by now."

"Yeah, well, it's hard to put an end to somebody you can't catch."

John looked past the various screens on his HUD to see that Commander Dunroe had opened the door to his office, and was gesturing him inside. John nodded to the Commander, and the boxes of information disappeared from his vision.

The office itself was not particularly large, and was sparsely furnished. A desk, chairs, a computer…

In the vidwindow, Alpha rubbed his hands together.

"Well, _hello_ private computer...see what you can get out of this guy while I take a look inside, yeah?"

Before John could say anything, the burning was gone and the vidwindow had shut once more. With a thought, John's external speakers switched back on just as Commander Dunroe closed the door behind him.

"I would offer you a seat," the Commander shrugged, "but…"

John turned to look at the available chairs, assessing their construction and integrity. Hollow aluminum frames. Padded seats.

There was no way those would hold his weight.

"I'll stand, sir," John said, and settled into a parade rest while Commander Dunroe manoeuvred behind his desk and took a seat in his own high-back chair.

"My apologies, I was never expecting to play host to a Spartan," he leaned forward, fingers interlocking over the desk, his already perpetual frown growing heavy as though weights had been threaded through the skin of his brow, "I'm assuming you're here about _the Hand of Merope_? "

John's stomach clenched. How did he guess that? Searching for lost starships wasn't usually a mission you would find a Spartan assigned to, and, more specifically, wasn't a mission _John_ would usually be assigned to.

"What gave it away?"

Dunroe's down-turned lips fell at an even steeper angle, head tilting slightly away from John before the man sighed, shook his head, and met his gaze once more. "Why else would a Spartan be here instead of out there kicking Covvie ass?"

Theoretically, there could be any number of highly classified reasons, but with the investigation into the _Merope's_ disappearance being so recently opened—and undoubtedly the most prominent item on Dunroe's SNAFU list—it actually wasn't that much of a stretch to realize the sudden arrival of a Spartan was somehow tied into it all.

"Fair enough," John said, "What can you tell me about the _Merope_? "

Dunroe leaned back in his chair, "Nothing that's not already in the records. It was a UNSC cargo ship, transporting highly classified equipment. I'm sure you've seen the manifest."

"I have," and John remembered there had been far more items of interest on-board than just the Freelancer equipment. "There were experimental weapons on-board that were supposed to be part of the _Infinity's_ supplies."

"That's right. Developed by Charon Industries, an umbrella corporation with its main office right here on New Carthage. They were manufactured in a plant on Revenant Two. The details on the weapons are classified, of course, and you won't find those on the manifest."

"I didn't expect to," John tilted his head slightly as he leaned forward to place his palms on the desk. It creaked a little under the added weight. "What areas have you searched?"

"Some of my ships are still out there—and there's several stationed in the Revenant System that are assisting the search—but so far they've scoured more than a third of the _Merope's_ scheduled cool-down points and a surrounding six-hundred light-year radius. There's been nothing. No emission trails, no distress signals, no left-over slip-space radiation at all."

"What about the other missing ships?"

Dunroe's head jerked upright, the knuckles of his clasped hands whitening for a brief moment, "You think they're connected?"

"It's my duty to consider all possibilities."

"A fair point," Dunroe said, and reached over to tap at the screen of his computer. It burst to life, and John half-expected to see Alpha's bobbing helmet as the AI made some snarky remark, but he at least had the sense to remain hidden deep within the operating system as Dunroe tapped icons, and then turned the screen so that the resulting holo-map seemed to leap out of the screen and hover between them.

"These are the scheduled cooldowns of ships in the last five years that never made it to Carthage." Hundreds of points lit up, with lines connecting them along specific paths. Several points served as hubs for numerous lines the closer the paths came to New Carthage, but the beginning of the paths otherwise branched off in drastically different directions all along the x, y, and z axis of the map.

"Show me the last known locations of each ship."

Numerous cooldown points remained lit as the rest darkened, indicating places where some sign of the missing ship in question had been found, such as a lingering emission trail or slipspace radiation, or even debris in some cases. Some points were near the very beginning of the ships' journeys, others were closer to their destination. And still others, like the _Merope_ , apparently never made it to their first cooldown at all. In the end, the glowing specks in the map resembled nothing more than the scattered bullet holes from a shotgun blast.

"As you can see, Chief," Dunroe gestured at the map, shaking his head, "there's no discernible pattern as to where the ships disappear."

"Maybe," John straightened his posture just as the burn returned to his implant, and a line of text appeared on his HUD.

 _/ We need to talk. Wrap it up. /_

"Anything else you think I should know, sir?"

The Commander shook his head, "I wish there was something more useful I could tell you. God knows Charon would finally stop breathing down my neck if we could just figure this out."

"I see...thank you sir."

John snapped off another salute just before turning to leave. He reached for the door controls—

"Chief," John turned only slightly at the sound of Dunroe's voice, looking over his shoulder at the officer. The man had risen from his seat, hands folded behind his back and hard eyes darkened. "If you find whoever's behind this...put an extra bullet in them for me."

John held the Commander's gaze for a moment, perfect eyesight picking out the tension in his jaw as they both seemed to hold their breath.

He turned to go once more.

"I will, sir."

* * *

"You were right," John said as he walked once more through the corridors of Fort Romulus, his external speakers switched off as he addressed Alpha, "Dunroe's in on it."

"Wha—uh—told ya, mother-fucker!"

John felt his face tighten, teeth aching as his jaw clenched and he tried not to exhale too loudly through his nose. If not for the importance of Dunroe's allegiance, he wouldn't have said a word to Alpha about it. His ego was already big enough.

"So...if I hypothetically had no evidence to prove that, then would you hypothetically have some of your own?"

"No," John stepped out of the base and crossed the tarmac towards the Pelican, "And if you don't have any evidence, then what did you find?"

"Hey, I said that was hypothetical."

John walked up the Pelican ramp in silence. Alpha huffed.

"Okay, so I don't have any fucking evidence, _shut up_. It's not like you have any either!"

No, no he didn't. Nothing other than what his instincts told him, anyway. Stepping up to the main console, John hit the ramp controls, shutting himself inside the Pelican.

"Dunroe's not incompetent," John said, "his record shows that much. So why was he surprised when I suggested the disappearances were connected by something other than pirates?"

"Hey, you're the ass who said it first," Alpha said, as he jumped from John's implant to the control console, hologram materializing as the Pelican's engines whirred to life under his command, "Ships with old engines like that go missing often enough. Besides, Jackal pirates are a pain in the ass."

John was well aware of what he had said back at the HIVE, but it was an investigator's job to consider _all_ possibilities, regardless of how remote they were. No, Dunroe's surprise had nothing to do with the fact he hadn't considered it, and everything to do with the fact that John _had_. So...not surprised, perhaps, but afraid. The man had also been no more helpful than he absolutely needed to be, answering when only asked questions directly. And his body language...even if social cues tended to be beyond them, Spartans were still highly-trained students of kinesics, and John knew suspicion when he saw it. That alone, of course, wasn't proof, and most UNSC personnel tended to be suspicious when anyone with any sort of association with ONI showed up on their doorstep, but this...John's gut was telling him it was more than that. And that last, parting remark about the extra bullet...what better way to dispel suspicion was there, then to appear all too eager to have the perpetrator caught?

But Dunroe was no spook, just a straight-forward officer with a head for battle tactics who had gotten himself involved in something shady.

John took his place in the pilot's chair, "So what did you find?"

"Well," Alpha said, "Unfortunately, there were no incriminating emails or memos, but it turns out our dear Commander uses his office computer to pay his bills, which means I just got all his banking information."

"And?"

"And—hands off, I'm flying!—Geez, talk about rude—"

John kept his hands on the controls for just a moment, then—as they began to move, dragging his grip with them—he slowly let go with a deep breath, willing the tightness in his chest to loosen. It didn't, so he swallowed, uncurled his tight knuckles, and waited for Alpha to continue.

"Dunroe's got four dozen accounts between forty-eight different banks. And, if you add all the funds, investments and expensive assets together, Dunroe is sitting on nearly four-point-seven million credits acquired in the last four years. Last time I checked, the UNSC doesn't pay that well...and, hell man, I don't even get paid at all!"

Paid? What would an AI even _do_ with money?

"Anyway, I've checked the deposit history on his accounts. The extra money gets deposited regularly, about twice a month and just under the reporting theshold. So, while each bank thinks he's just getting a regular, small paycheck from a couple dozen different security consulting firms, you combine those payments and he's easily getting paid an extra ninety-six thousand a month."

"So he's taking bribes."

"Looks that way. I've already anonymously flagged his accounts for possible fraud and tax evasion, but this doesn't get us any closer to whoever's pulling the strings."

"Did you tap his computer?"

"What, you think I'm an amateur? Of _course_ I tapped his computer. But unless he's dumb enough to use a UNSC computer to contact these people, that does jackshit for us."

"What about the firms? Any commonalities?"

"I've got another algorithm collectin' data on them from Waypoint, but I haven't found any yet. If they're fronts, then they're damn good ones."

Hmm, so their perpetrator very likely had a corporate background. Not that surprising, honestly. And speaking of corporate…

John leaned forward in the chair, thinking back to his brief conversation with Dunroe as he folded his hands together and let them hang, elbows resting on his knees, "Did you save the maps Dunroe showed us?"

Alpha snorted, and crossed his arms, "Obviously. I'm not an idiot y'know."

John _did_ know. He also knew Alpha was careless. "Show it to me."

"Say 'please.'"

John stared.

"What? It's called being _polite_ , asshole."

"Show me the map. _Now._ "

"Alright, alright, fuckin' cool it," Alpha snapped his fingers and the map of missing ships and their cooldown points appeared again, "Happy now?"

No, he wasn't. Spartans were never happy, never angry, never—it didn't matter. The mission was all that mattered.

John studied the map for a moment, "Do you have the manifests for these ships?"

"No, I left them in my other data-chip—of course I have the _fucking manifests_."

"How many of them were carrying cargo from a 'Charon Industries'?"

Alpha tilted his head, glancing at the map. He sighed. "Not enough of them to be a pattern. Some of these ships disappeared over four years—"

His hologram abruptly stilled. "Wait a damn second."

"What is it?"

He jabbed a finger and about half the ships and their routes lit up, "There, see these ships? I checked Dunroe's accounts for the earliest payment from these security firms, and _these_ ships all disappeared _before_ he started taking bribes, back in the final months of the war." Alpha swiped his hand and the selected ships vanished. "That son of a bitch was fucking up my algorithm by including disappearances he knew weren't part of whatever the hell's going on here."

"And the ones that disappeared after?"

"Seventy-four percent of them were carrying cargo from Charon Industries."

John leaned back and turned to stare out the window, watching the cities below them pass by. "Any rival companies?"

"You thinking corporate sabotage?"

"It could be. Dunroe mentioned Charon was giving him a hard time."

The holographic map winked out, and Alpha shrugged, "Biggest competitor for weapons and armor tech is Misriah Armory. They've also got a few other competitors that could be out to steal their tech, but Charon's cargos been going missing for four years, and none of their rivals have started touting anything remotely similar, not even Misriah. And most of them get bought out by Charon or sued out of business as soon as they get anywhere close to catching up."

So who else would stand to benefit from Charon's loss? Insurrectionists, maybe. John had read the reports that showed they were starting to stir again now that the war was over. It was possible that insurrectionist sympathisers had settled on New Carthage as refugees after being driven from their homeworlds during the war. If they worked their way patiently up the corporate ladder, they'd potentially be in a position to direct shipments of military weapons into their brethren's hands instead of the UNSC's.

And what better place would there be to do that, than from within Charon itself? But where were they getting the money to pay Dunroe off from? Embezzlement? Surely Charon's accountants would have noticed that much money disappearing from underneath them. It wasn't like they could just walk in and demand all the information off their servers either.

John's fists clenched and unclenched briefly. It looked like there was only one step left forward, and he would have to be careful not to set off a landmine while taking it.

"Take us to Charon's HQ."

* * *

"There's a priority message from Commander Dunroe for you Chairman."

"Thank you FILSS...put him through."

There was no video feed as the message came through, just a voice carried clearly across the many light-years between them.

"We have a problem."

In the privacy of his office aboard the _Staff of Charon_ , with only the defunct Project Freelancer's shackled, dumb AI to see, Malcom Hargrove permitted himself a rare eye-roll.

"Clearly, Commander, or else you would not be calling me."

There was a moment of silence as Hargrove sipped at his coffee, gaze lingering on his trophies as he leaned back in his chair. Agent Maine's bruteshot, the Forerunner Monitor, the shattered helmet of Agent Texas…

...No, not really Agent Texas, but a helmet worn by a mere memory of her. A memory of a memory. What a sad, sad man Dr. Leonard Church had been, to dedicate all his resources to something so pointless when such an impossible phenomenon—and all the glory, fame, and fortune it could have brought him—had been right at his fingertips.

It was such a pity the original Beta AI appeared to be long since gone, Charon would have greatly benefited from studying it…

"It's about the _Merope_ — "

Hargrove set his mug down with an audible _clank_ against the desk, "If one of your ships has merely wandered off the search path again, then—"

"ONI is investigating."

Slowly, Hargrove spun his chair to let the full weight of his narrowed gaze fall upon the monitor displaying the call status. "I highly doubt that."

"Then why don't you tell me," Dunroe's deep, hoarse voice dropped even lower, sounding harsher, like the distant roar of a rockslide, "why in all hell the _Master Chief_ himself is now on Carthage looking for it?"

The Master Chief? Spartan-117? The Saviour of the Galaxy himself? That was...unexpected. Surely the man was more useful out slaughtering the hordes of alien scum still trying to knock on Earth's door? ONI would never assign such an asset to an investigation like this. But if it wasn't ONI…

Then it had to be Lord Hood himself. What a meddlesome, wasteful man.

"It doesn't matter who sent him Commander, what matters is what you _told_ him."

"Nothing useful...there's no patterns in the missing ships, no sign of the Merope, and I've got Charon's top executives breathing down my neck—"

Hargrove felt the brief tingle of his pacemaker kicking in as his heart skipped a beat. "You mentioned _Charon_?"

"Yes sir."

"So am I to suppose, my dear Commander," Hargrove curled his hands into fists, "that mentioning—to an ONI-trained _Spartan_ no less — one, very specific company out of the _hundreds_ that were affected by the _Merope's_ disappearance, constitutes part of your definition of 'nothing useful'?"

There was a heavy pause on the other end of the line, the silence of a man who had realized the colossal heaps of dirt he had just dug from his own grave was more than six feet's worth.

"...I'll warn security," Dunroe said.

"See that you do."

Hargrove ended the call with a vicious swipe of the screen, and saw his own heavily scowling face staring back at him from the black, now-dormant glass. He inhaled deeply, and waited for his pacemaker to switch off again while he rubbed at his temple. First those damn Sim Troopers surviving the crash and now this? The Sim Troopers, ridiculously lucky fools that they were, were a minor problem in the grand scheme of things, but this? This had the potential to ruin _everything_.

"FILSS."

"Yes Chairman?"

"Get me Admiral Osman."

* * *

"Insurrectionists? Seriously? That's what you're going with?"

John turned slightly away from Alpha's hologram, hand gripping the railing above him tight enough to make a barely audible creak. He didn't like the cautious, half-disbelieving edge to the AI's voice. "It's a possibility we have to consider."

"Hey, I'm just saying that you're the guy who discovered an ancient dooms-day weapon and space-zombies. I figure with that kind of history, plus my fuckin' bad luck, we should at least consider—I dunno—a time-traveling, disgruntled employee with OP cybernetics from the future out to destroy Charon before it can ruin his life? Or, y'know, _some_ kind of Hollywood bullshit."

John swayed with the subtle shifts and adjustments of the cloaked Pelican as Alpha guided its descent onto Charon Industries' landing pad, not even bothering to look back at the AI as he waited for the Pelican to settle. "This isn't a movie Alpha."

"Yeah, tell me about it," the bay door began to lower as the AI muttered, "If it was, I'd have the damn girl already."

There was something... _bitter_ in the words. Enough so that John looked back just in time to see the hologram fade as Alpha jumped to his implant. It seemed to sting a little more this time, like a still-too-raw burn being rubbed against rough cloth. An ache began behind his eyes not long after, and he closed them momentarily to take a breath.

"I'm workin' on the security right now," the AI said as John walked down the ramp from the invisible Pelican, and the ache throbbed with every word, "It's got some pretty damn high encryptions on it, so it might take a few minutes to break through."

"Copy," John said, boots thudding against the roof of the tower. He glanced back briefly to watch the ramp of the Pelican close once again, and the interior of the Pelican was replaced with a view of the distant night sky. Satisfied that the cloak was still in place, John made his way to the locked roof entrance. Holographic lock, but that shouldn't be a problem for Alph—

For a moment, the world slowed down as the door split at the middle and began to separate. John pushed off on one foot, ducking behind a nearby protruding vent.

"What the fuck?" Alpha hissed in his ear, "I thought you were supposed to be _lucky!?_ "

John ignored him, one eye on the yellow dot on his motion tracker as it moved closer, his sensors picking up the security guard's friendly FOF tag.

The back of the security guard came into view as he walked past John's hiding place. The man's head tilted and bobbed as though he were speaking. Without his prompting, Alpha hacked the guard's radio.

"—ll him I'm takin' my break."

There was a weary sigh from the other end of the connection, "Lyle said no breaks tonight man."

"Well, tell him to go fuck himself too then. He pulled in more than enough extra hands tonight for me to take a god-damn smoke."

"Look, he said he got a tip—"

"Oh yeah, from who? The fuckin' tooth fairy? Jesus, Mike, nobody's dumb enough to break into Charon fucking Industries. That's why this is the cushiest job in the whole god-damn galaxy. Fancy armour, nice guns, fat paycheck and zero danger."

"You forget about Spiral?"

"Oh _please_. _Nobody_ is suicidal enough to drop a skyscraper this fuckin' close to Earth. This ain't a science lab in the Outer Colonies."

"I still don't think—"

"Mike, I'm not askin' ya to think, I'm just askin' ya to...look, just tell Lyle I thought I saw some punk hangin' around and I'm checkin' the perimeter or somethin'. You can do that, right?"

"Phil…"

"Hey, who's the guy who convinced Lyle to put you in that nice, comfy chair man?"

There was another sigh, accompanied by a long-suffering groan, " _Fine_. But if I don't see you back on the cameras in fifteen minutes, I'm tellin' Lyle."

The guard chuckled, "You got it man. Thanks."

With that, the guard popped his helmet off, revealing the back of a buzz-cut. John remained crouched where he was, watching as the guard tucked his helmet under his arm and began rummaging in his pouches.

"What're we gonna do?" Alpha asked in an unnecessary whisper as the guard pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one, still mere feet away, "If he turns around—"

"I know , " John said, external speakers switched off. If John was careful, then he could get Alpha to hack the lock, and he could sneak inside without alerting the guard. With how close the guard was still standing though, he would more than likely hear the beeping of the lock and the whoosh of the door, and, even if he didn't, there was always the chance the man would walk right into the side of the Pelican while John was gone if he decided to meander about the landing pad. And waiting him out for fifteen minutes wasn't an option, not when all he had to do was look over his shoulder and—

He looked over his shoulder.

John struck. Watched in slow motion as the cigarette began to fall from the man's parting lips, and his own fist slammed into the guard's face.

The man's head snapped back, and, for just one moment, John could see the ODST soldiers he had killed in training so many years ago. Could hear the crunch of their bones under his newly augmented fists, see the slow widening of their eyes and—

The man crumpled and John caught him. Blood was running from his broken nose, and John checked quickly for a pulse with the bioscanner. It was there. Good, he had held back enough then.

A quick search of the guard's pouches produced a standard set of police cuffs, and John carried the man over to the safety railing that ringed the roof, cuffing his hands around it.

"Great, and now we're on a timer," Alpha muttered.

"Then get that door ope—"

The lock beeped, and the door opened.

"You're welcome, _asshole_."

* * *

"So, three guesses who tipped them off, and the first two don't count."

The only response Church got was a hum from deep in the Chief's throat as the man glanced upward. A little black camera above the doorway swung into the Chief's field of vision.

"You're good jackass, I set it on a loop already. Oh, and the answer was _Dunroe_ by the way."

The Chief said nothing, even as he darted to the next corner and crouched down.

"Hallway's clear," Church said, and the Chief peered around the corner, "I said it's _clear_."

All he got was an acknowledging grunt as the Spartan finally began to move again. What was the point of even telling him anything if he was always just checking for himself? If he thought he was so much better at this job, then Church would like to see _him_ hack through four layers of nine-hundred bit encryption in two minutes with nothing but his _thoughts_.

"Have you located the server room?" Chief asked.

Church huffed and said nothing.

" _Alpha_."

"Oh, sorry, are we actually using _words_ now? I thought we were practicing our cave-man impressions."

Ah, and there the Chief went, glaring again. Church's memories pulled forth such a sharp recollection of eye-rolling—the swinging of vision, the brief pressure of his eyeballs against the top of his sockets—that he almost thought he had a body again.

Ugh, he was so fucking _done_ with this guy. This mission could not possibly end soon enough.

"Three floors down. Do me a favour and trip when you get to the stairs."

The Chief made his way silently down the hall, gaze briefly sweeping over a locked office door, the holographic display proudly announcing it as the office of _Malcom Hargrove, CEO_.

Something about the name clawed at Church's memories. Hargrove, Hargrove hmmm...wait a second. Wasn't he the Chairman for the UNSC Oversight Sub-Committee? The guy who investigated Freelancer?

Huh, maybe he would know something about who else would be after Freelancer tech.

"Hey wait, stop," Church said.

The Chief's footsteps slowed, but didn't stop, "What is it?"

"We should check that office back there. The CEO might have something on his computer."

The Chief glanced back. Briefly. And then he kept moving, "We don't have time. The servers are a higher priority." _And more likely to contain something useful_ went unspoken, considering the company's wealth of information all had to pass through those servers at some point.

Church swallowed back a retort as the mission timer ticked down to eleven minutes. It was true. And, really, what did a CEO have to gain from making his own products disappear?

"Okay, _fine_ , " Church felt non-existent nausea rumbling throughout his digital mind as he pulled his grasping mental fingers away from the holographic lock's encrypted programs. "Just hurry it the fuck up, okay?"

The words weren't even fully formed before the Chief paused once again as he reached the corner to the next hallway. Oh for the love of—

"Look, I will _tell you_ if there's anybo — _shit_ —office, now, _get the fuck out of sight!_ "

For once, the Chief listened to him immediately.

The red light by Hargrove's door flashed green. The door slid open just as the Chief reached it.

He dived through, tucking into an impossibly silent roll. Church watched through the cameras—putting a feed up on the Chief's HUD—and held his figurative breath as the door slid shut and the lock turned red again just a millisecond before the two guards rounded the corner.

In the upper right corner of the Chief's HUD, the mission timer ticked down to ten minutes and kept dropping, while, in the left corner, they both watched the guards pause outside the door.

"You got any idea why Lyle's so wound up?" One guard asked the other. The other shrugged.

"Ain't he always wound up?"

Church tuned out the useless chatter as the Chief glanced around the room, probably searching for another exit or anything that might serve as a useful hiding place for a nearly eight-foot Spartan in the event someone else entered the room unexpectedly.

The room was lit softly by the lights of the city streaming in from the floor-to-ceiling windows, casting sharp shadows that still weren't enough to hide the fact it was a large, opulent office. Church took careful stock of its contents.

A mahogany desk built around a holographic tabletop, a leather chair, and a collection of blueprints from various technologies throughout human history sprawled the wall. The first Shaw-Fujikawa engine, a MAC cannon, the first colony ships…

Outside the office, the guards started to move again. In another minute, they would be out of sight, and the coast would be clear for the Chief to get on the move again. The mission timer ticked down to nine minutes.

Damn it. They still had three floors to go and—Church checked the cameras on the next three floors.

... _fucking hell_. How many extra people did this Lyle jackass call in!? There was a pair of guards in every corridor. Patrol paths conveniently overlapping at the worst possible places for an intruder. The Chief was a powerhouse, a trained Spook and ONI operative but...he was not currently equipped for stealth. Unfortunately, shooting their way through to the server room wasn't an option either. This was a civilian facility, they would never hear the fucking end of it from Hood.

All of these thoughts took less than a millisecond for Church to consider, and, in that time, he found other strands of thought wandering back to scratch at an itch.

 _Hargrove..._ ah, what the hell.

Church stretched out his thoughts, looking for a wireless connection. If he could just hop in the console for a second, take a quick peak…

"Oh god-damn it," Church hissed when his thoughts only grasped at empty air just as the guards disappeared around the next corner. He activated his hologram, hovering over Hargrove's desk, a blue, shining figure in the dark. "Chief—plug me in over here."

"We don't have time."

"Oh bullshit! I can read a thousand books in a millisecond, we have _fucking time_."

"The servers—"

"Are too damn far away! By the time we get to them, our dear 'Mike' is gonna notice his buddy's not back on patrol yet."

The Chief glanced over at Hargrove's desk, gaze lingering for a moment on Church's hologram—who crossed his arms—then he turned back to the still-locked door.

"We _need_ that data."

They did. And there was no guarantee there would be anything in Hargrove's computer other than numbers from the last business quarter—in fact, the odds were low—but…

Something _itched_. Hargrove was an upstanding citizen, a savvy business-man and—thanks to his work against Freelancer—was hailed as the Chairman who dragged Freelancer's dirtiest secrets into the light, a humanitarian who heralded a new age of AI rights...and now his company was being targeted by potential insurrectionists? So was it just a coincidence that the Reds and Blues, and Freelancer's tech, were on-board that ship too?

Something...something wasn't _right…_

"Alpha, the door—"

" _No._ "

"...what?"

The word rumbled in the Chief's throat dangerously, his fingers curling into fists that Church didn't doubt would have crushed anything held within them.

"You heard me," Church said, "I'm not unlocking that god-damn door until you plug me into _this fucking console_. "

For a moment, neither spoke. The timer ticked silently down to eight minutes. Was he really going to _fight_ him on this when there was so little—

The Chief swung around and rose from his crouch in one motion, fists still clenched as he stalked to Hargrove's desk. A hand went up to his helmet, and Church's hologram vanished as the Spartan pulled his AI data chip from its slot.

It slotted easily into the port in Hargrove's desk, and the holographic display sprung to life.

"Make it quick," the Chief said. And, oh yeah, he was fucking pissed as hell if that small suggestion of a growl was anything to go by. So...yeah...there had better be something good in here somewhere.

Church could almost feel his nonexistent brow puckering with concentration as he prodded and poked around in Hargrove's systems, hacking his way through encryptions with difficulty. The man had spared no expense in encryption software, and Church had never seen this particular type of coding language anywhere on the market before.

That was fine, all code had to be converted into binary code somewhere along the way, so if he could just...ah, there. Got it.

"Alpha—"

"I'm _busy_. " And, yes, he knew there were only six minutes left, damn it. What, did he think this was _easy?_ Did he know how many bazillions of back-and-forths he had already had with this damn system in the span of one minute, let alone two?

It didn't matter now though. The hard part was over as the whole of Hargrove's computer was opened up to him. A quick subroutine scanned through the system, copying any files that contained a hastily compiled list of keywords. _Comm Buoys, mining colonies, the Hand of Merope…_

It was depressingly little. Hardly more than a few memos from Hargrove to the PR staff and shareholders, assuring them that this most recent disappearance wouldn't affect Charon Industries shares any more than the rest of them had. The company's military contracts were still in place, and prospective buyers were still lining up…

This couldn't be it. God damn it, this couldn't be _all there was_. He drew up another subroutine, scanned the system again with a new set of keywords. Nothing.

So he did it again. And again. And _again._

It had to be here! It just had to—

Wait...there was something else in here.

Carefully, Church dug deeper, dipping his mental fingers into the code of the very operating system itself. Something was missing. It was a massive, empty space that, according to the operating system, wasn't actually _empty_. Just cut off. Blocked. _Hidden_.

Hargrove had a hidden hard-drive in this system. Now that he knew it was there, all Church had to do was manipulate the code a little and...bingo.

A pathway to the hard-drive opened up. But Church wasn't dumb enough to just reach in and start accessing files. If Hargrove had bothered to hide the hard-drive, then he had probably protected it with it's own separate layers of security and fail-safes in the event it was compromised. Church would have to be careful.

So he was. He wove his way meticulously through the traps and encryption and file lock-down protocols. The heaviest protections he had yet encountered. Even at speeds faster than thought itself, the back-and-forth with the security systems stretched out, and the milliseconds turned to seconds, and the mission timer kept dropping. There was more than enough time though. Four minutes was more than enough.

In the world outside Hargrove's computer, the Master Chief growled. "I'm calling it. We're aborting the mission."

"What? Fuck no! Look, there's something here, I just need a few more minutes!"

"We're leaving. _Now._ "

 _No_. No, damn it! Church could see the Chief's hand descending in slow motion, reaching to yank the chip out.

He didn't waste another precious moment of thought on formulating a protest. He calculated he had about one-point-seven seconds before the Chief removed his chip. That was one-point-seven seconds to grab what he could. There were still a few defenses up, but he would have to take the chance.

He dove in, throwing out query after search query and copying one file after another, not even taking the time to process the information as the last of the hard-drive's defenses came to life and— _fuck_. It was corrupting the files.

The Chief's hand kept descending. Point-nine seconds.

Church saved what he could, throwing up hastily-written subroutines to block the security protocol. But it adapted and changed, and _damn it_ , if he just had more ti—

His chip was yanked out, and his consciousness forcibly yanked along with it.

The Chief slammed it into his helmet, and all Church could see was _red_.

"YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE! I HAD IT! I FUCKING _HAD_ IT!"

The Chief stumbled, hand slamming down onto the desk for support hard enough to crack the console's screen. Subroutines screamed at Church that the Spartan's heartbeat had accelerated, but he didn't fucking—

A voice crackled over the guards' hacked comm signal.

"What was that?"

"Is someone in there?"

Shit. He had yelled that on the external speakers too, hadn't he?

The anger simmered, but Church pushed it down long enough to check the camera feed outside the office and— _oh god-damn it_ , when did those two come back? He watched as they raised their guns and crept closer, one on either side of the door.

"Guards outside," Church said as the Chief straightened and shook his head a little. He pulled the camera feed up on the HUD once more, just in time for the two guards to exchange a flurry of hand signals.

The Chief pressed himself flat against the wall next to the door just as one of them opened it. The other charged in, gun raised and—

The Spartan's fist snapped out, cracking the guard's visor. The guard stumbled off-balance. Chief ripped the gun from his hands—spun—and kicked him across the room.

The second guard's magnum was already up— _"Holy shit!"_ — and—BLAM!

A single bullet pinged off the Chief's golden shield, and the guard watched, jaw undoubtedly gaping under his visor, as the flattened bullet rolled down the hallway.

And then a hand bigger than the guard's face gripped his helmet, and slammed his head through the plaster wall.

There was a blessed moment of absolute silence...and then the alarms began to wail.

" _Oh_ \- kay," Church said, " _now_ we need to leave."

* * *

John's headache was like one tsunami wave after another. Tearing through the streets of his mind with a force that threatened to rip his thoughts from their foundations. But they remained standing through sheer force of will, only to tremble again as the wave receded—trying to pull them out to sea with it—before the next wave came crashing through.

Of course, unlike the waters of Earth's oceans, these waves were _boiling_.

It was decades of honed instincts and muscle memory that kept John on course even as his vision became a little fuzzy around the edges, and his thoughts a little more eroded. There was just enough clarity left to remind himself these guards were _human_ , and technically civilians, so _incapacitate, don't kill_.

Another spray of bullets splashed against his shields as he charged forward, knocked the gun aside, and plowed his fist into the guard's gut hard enough to crack the armour, and probably a few ribs beneath. It was enough to knock him out.

"Almost there."

John grimaced, just slightly, at the extra waves of pain Alpha's voice sent through his head. At the way the room brightened far too much.

Another guard rounded the corner, squealed in terror at the sight of the eight-foot behemoth, and then slumped over unconscious with a slightly dented helmet.

John blinked and looked at his curled fist as it retracted. He didn't remember throwing that punch.

Alpha huffed, "We've got more squads heading this way, so would you hurry the fuck up already?"

John sucked in a breath through clenched teeth, fists tightening even as he stepped over the fallen guard and dashed down the hallway to the roof access stairwell. The exit was just at the top of the stairs now, just a little further...just a little…

The edges of his vision were still growing fuzzier, and even the dim lights of the stairwell seemed to drown out the shapes of the world. Alpha spoke, but his voice seemed to come from far away. A little yellow dot moved on his motion tracker, blinking…

 _Red?_

In front of him. Enemy incoming. If he was lucky, it was just a common combat-form, with an injury like this—

...what injury?

Footsteps. They were coming. In front. Down the stairs. _Moaning as the voice in his head echoed and throbbed, and the rotting flesh of the walls trembled—_

In one smooth movement, John brought up his magnum from his side plate, aimed for the approaching shadow—was that the head?—and—

Black visor. Grey armour. Yellow dot.

 _No!_

His arm jerked just as he finished pulling the trigger. A bullet whizzed past the guard's head. Shot out a light. The man stumbled backwards with a yelp. Broken cuffs jingled.

John spun the pistol in his grip—grabbing it by the barrel—and—CRACK! The visor shattered with the force. Black glass tinkled against the stairs.

He fell back. Slid down the wall, head lolling.

It was the guard from the roof.

Did John break his neck this time? He had to check, had to make sure—

"What the fuck—Put the gun away you bastard, these are civilians!"

John blinked at the slumped figure, bioscanner displaying a steady pulse. "I didn't—"

"Oh _shit—_ just keep moving!"

John did. And damn it, would his head ever stop _aching?_

"Hey, hey...you okay?"

That was a dumb question. He was fine. It was the mission they should be worried about.

But...they had failed the mission. And now whoever was behind it all in Charon would know the UNSC was on to them and they had _no idea_ who it was.

John burst onto the roof just as the Pelican ramp finished lowering from Alpha's remote command. The burn at the base of his skull disappeared so suddenly that he nearly stumbled as he raced up the ramp. As though he had been bracing himself against a wall that suddenly disappeared.

The engine rumbled to life, and the Pelican lifted, bay door closing as it took off into the night.

John took a moment to just breathe, letting his headache lessen into the ebb and flow of lapping waves. Tolerable, and easily ignored.

All of this...all of this for _nothing_.

His fists clenched at his sides, and he stalked to the cockpit.

"Alpha," he didn't try to keep back the growl as his gaze landed on the blue hologram. The avatar sat cross-legged above the console, several windows open in front of him with racing lines of binary code. "What the hell were you _thinking?_ "

"What was _I_ thinking!?" The hologram surged to its feet, stomping forward to point a finger at John's visor. "What the hell were _you_ thinking!? I almost had it! I almost had _everything_!"

Alpha cut through the air with a vicious swipe of his hand. The open files of code snapped shut, replaced by a lazily rotating world.

"You see this? _This_ is fucking _Chorus_. A planet that—according to the UNSC records—was presumed to have been glassed by the god-damn Covenant after the UNSC pulled out of the Outer Colonies. Well, guess what? It _wasn't_. In fact the Covenant fucking missed it _entirely_. And, you want to know something _else?_ " Alpha snapped his fingers, the holographic world grew larger, and a single, blinking light slowly orbited around it. "It's got a fucking illegal commsat in orbit, owned by Charon Industries, that just so happens to have registered the arrival of the fucking _Hand of Merope_ over _two god-damn months ago!_ "

A moment of silence followed. Alpha's avatar remained tightly wound, like a collapsing blue star about to detonate.

"So?" Alpha bit out, voice scathing, "You had something you wanted to say, _John?_ "

John's lips curled back in a silent, almost snarl at the mocking use of his name. How dare he, after John had made it clear that he didn't have the right—

" _It's Church, asshole. Nobody gets to call me Alpha_."

The Spartan looked away, stared at the back of his own fist as it pressed against the door-frame of the cockpit. He swallowed. "We were running out of time."

"No we _weren't!_ I only needed one more minute!"

...and the now-frozen mission timer on John's HUD said they had two left to spare. John didn't doubt that Alpha had paused it as soon as they reached the Pelican. Just so he could make a point.

Something uncomfortable and unfamiliar settled in John's chest, and that mysterious ache returned to it, thumping in time with his heartbeat. He took a deep breath, willing it away. Now was not the time.

"You took a gamble," John said, keeping his voice carefully empty. Neutral.

"No, I followed a _hunch_. And I was _right_ you jackass. Why can't you just fucking admit that!?"

John tasted acid in his throat. Felt the words 'fine, you were right' get stuck at the bottom and refuse to crawl out. John wasn't used to being wrong. His instincts had never failed him.

 _Ah_ , said a voice that sounded so, so like Dr. Halsey delivering a lecture, _but it wasn't your instincts you were listening to, was it?_

Something heavy dropped into John's gut as he remembered the cold fury, the irritation, the frustration as he plugged Alpha into the console— _cornered, blackmailed, the mission at risk because of Alpha's need to_ control—and, no...it hadn't been his instincts.

Something was wrong with him.

"I—" his fists clenched tighter, and the words he knew he had to say seemed to choke him, but he dragged them up anyway. Because, as much as he hated losing— _and as much as admitting it felt like losing_ — he had been wrong. "I'm sorry."

Alpha laughed, "Oh, you're _sorry_? For _what_ exactly? Ignoring everything I say? Treating me like a fucking _tool?_ Oh, or how about for being _a god-damn hypocrite?_ "

"Alph— _Church—_ "

"No, y'know what? How about you save your fucking _sorry_ for someone who gives a shit, shut up, _do your job_ and let me fucking do mine!"

The Pelican tilted and John stumbled back. The cockpit door slammed shut.

"Alpha!" John banged a fist on the door, vibrations shuddering through it, but the AI didn't respond.

Beneath the undersuit of his armour, Cortana's empty data matrix seemed to press even more tightly against his chest.

* * *

In the vast darkness between stars and worlds, a ship floated. There was no light to illuminate the name written across its side, and the ship itself was hardly more than a shadow.

Onboard, a woman dressed in the uniform of an Admiral stood on an observation deck, looking down into a laboratory where various scientists bustled about. Beside her, a holographic box hovered.

"She's almost finished," Black Box said, "it'll be about a week before she's up and running."

"A week?" the voice of Malcolm Hargrove said from a nearby console, "We don't have a week. The UNSC's oh-so-beloved attack dog is likely on his way to Chorus as we speak."

"Most likely," the AI said, "And my calculations of his Pelican's slipspace capabilities put his arrival at about a week as well, Chairman."

"Like I said then," Hargrove all but growled, "We don't have a week. "

"Do you always get so upset when things go wrong, Chairman?" Osman leaned forward, pressing her hands against the ledge as she leaned closer and peered down at the piece of Forerunner tech sitting innocently in the midst of the lab. It resembled a box, with the glowing orange lines that seemed to be appearing on more and more of the Forerunners' technology as of late. The change in aesthetics hardly seemed important to her, but one of her scientists had been simply fascinated by its supposed implications of a cultural schism among the Forerunners. Perhaps to do with the Didact? Or something else?

They needed to know more, eventually, but, for now, such questions weren't high on the priority list.

"Perhaps I would be _less_ upset," Hargrove began, and she could hear the tremor of indignation in his voice, "if I knew what you wanted me to _do_ about it? With the tracking information you gave me, I can have Locus and Felix shoot him down—"

"That is not advisable," Black Box said, monotone, "Sierra-One-One-Seven's track record suggests he would survive."

Of course he would. Because he was _John_ , the perfect little brainwashed soldier who couldn't even feel the pain of a broken bone unless someone gave him permission to. It made him unstoppable, and Osman had every intention of making sure Hood burned for daring to appropriate one of ONI's greatest weapons for his own agenda.

"BB is right, as usual," she said, and could almost _feel_ the Chairman glowering at her. What a child. "And then One-One-Seven would know your men are his enemies. For now, we'll have to stall him for as long as possible once he arrives...I hear Felix is a talented liar?"

Hargrove huffed, "He is."

But was he talented enough to lie to an ONI-trained Spartan? That remained to be seen.

Osman straightened, folding her hands behind her back as she followed the cables attached to the Forerunner device with her eyes, leading her to a holo-tank where the scientists clustered. A blue sphere glowed within the glass, shifting.

"Then tell him to start rehearsing, Chairman."

"...very well, Admiral."

The connection died, and Osman spent just a moment watching the blue sphere shift.

"Well," Black Box said, "I think Charon's going to need a new CEO soon."

"Is our agent still on the board of directors?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Good. See to it he gets the position when this goes south. And make sure nothing can be traced back to us."

"Already done."

"And Hargrove?"

"We've already put together enough evidence to have him incarcerated, and to prove he was acting alone. There's also a team onboard the _Staff of Charon_ to...take care of things, if he decides to talk."

"Good. The last thing humanity needs right now is Hood getting his hands on anything that could implicate ONI." The damn fool, didn't he know ONI was the only reason humanity had any breathing room to recover from the war? The only reason it even _survived_ the war?

The Master Chief wouldn't exist if not for ONI. Osman's fists clenched. Proof that good things could be born of atrocities. That the ends justified the means. Whatever it took, to keep humanity safe…

Osman straightened her shoulders a little more, even as her jaw clenched and the old scars from her failed augmentations ached with phantom pain under her uniform. She cast one last look down into the laboratory, where the blue sphere now resembled a human figure.

She looked away.

"Keep me informed on her progress."

"Of course ma'am."

* * *

 **I have to admit** **that** **I'm** **a little** **nervous about this** **undertaking** **,** **but what's life without some adventure? I look forward to continuing this story, and as I have stated on my profile I will do my damnedest to get my first addition to this story up by the end of the first week in September. If you know anybody who followed the original, or know venues to reach them, spread the word! Oh, and** **if anybody knows how to update the TVTropes page (which is how I found this work originally), then I would greatly appreciate it –** **of course I might actually need to** _ **prove**_ **that my continuation is worth recommending first..** **. See you all in a couple weeks! Ideally… hopefully…**

 **SentinelStorm signing off, and remember —** **Stand Against the Storm.**


	8. Chapter 8

**My first chapter! I'm so happy to finally get this out to all of you! I am VERY sorry about the delay of… oh damn, a month? In the future I will not set such unrealistic and unachievable deadlines to you guys and myself. I was moving back up to college and starting my second academic year, but I also was very relaxed and wasted a lot of time after that – time I should have used for school and writing. But now I am _officially_ back on the horse, so writing will be more regular, and you will definitely get at bare minimum one more chapter by the end of this calendar year. Without further ado, enjoy my first step on the path of this tale…**

* * *

Silence.

Two days of deafening silence as the Pelican travelled along its path through slipspace. John should have been astounded that Church could be quiet for that long, or even for more than twenty seconds. He wondered if the A.I. would keep this up for the whole week of travel, but it appeared Church desired to prove him wrong. Again.

With a brighter than necessary flash as his hologram appeared, Church materialized with a stern posture and arms crossed.

"So, here's everything I managed to gather on Chorus." He stated flatly, "It's a very new colony, settled just before the Great War, colonized for its wealth of xenoarcheological sites."

Church paused, almost waiting for the Chief to cut in.

He didn't.

"Due to the fact it was such a late settlement, the sites never really had a chance to be examined."

John nodded slowly, which caused Church to let irritation bleed into his voice due to his stoicism.

"Which means there's a shit ton of alien tech lying around! Charon must be trying to get it all off-world covertly. Which can't be easy I imagine, dodging the batshit-crazy natives."

"Crazy?" Master Chief asked as softly as he could manage.

"Yeah, _crazy_. And you won't like 'em at all Chief. See, after the War Chorus was mostly forgotten by the UNSC and the people thought that they could govern themselves."

Master Chief's face darkened.

"Insurrectionists."

"Yeaaaah, kinda. Except these guys almost immediately broke out into a civil war, and a pretty bloody one at that." Church stopped for a moment, and John thought it was to wait out some fit of anger Church imagined he would have at the mention of some groups similar to his first enemies. If Church thought that would rile him up, he was wrong. But Church still hadn't continued after a prolonged silence.

"…And?" John tentatively asked.

"And, what?" the last word biting, to which John responded with quiet.

"Oh! You think there's more? Well there would have been, if you hadn't pulled me from the GODDAMN SYSTEM WITH TWO FUCKING MINUTES TO SPARE!" Church screamed.

John signed, there was the response he was waiting for. Well, no use putting this off.

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah! No shit you're sorry! We almost had _everything_ , but you were too goddamn stubborn to admit that Mr. Savior-of-the-Fucking-Galaxy could be wrong on a mission!"

As Church's voice pierced his ears again, John was annoyed. Couldn't Alpha see how _hard_ this was for him? To admit there was something wrong? That he would fail in his mission?

 _Again_. A stray thought nagged him.

John pushed it aside to work through the issue at hand. An irate A.I. that was determined to show that he was right and John was wrong in the most immature ways imaginable.

"If we are going to work together–" John started but was quickly cut off by an increasingly angry Church.

" _Together?_ Listen cockbite, this hasn't been anything close to a _partnership_. You have ordered me around, didn't listen to any of my fucking suggestions – which are based on calculations faster than you can fucking _think_ – and you treat me like a goddamn TOOL. I am a PERSON not a fucking _thing_ you can torture and rip apart just because you fucking _want to!_ "

Neither of them said a word as Church huffed as if he was breathless from his screed. It appeared that they both had pasts that were tearing them up inside. Maybe they weren't so different…

"We need to start over."

"Yeah no kidding dipshit." Church retorted, to which John almost allowed himself to roll his eyes at.

"In order to truly be partners, we need to be able to trust each other. This," gesturing to the gulf between them, "has been chaos. Two people each trying to do the job their way. Alone." Pain seeped into John's voice on the last word, not to a degree that many would be able to tell but to those who knew _John_ – it would be jarring the amount of emotion he just let out into the open.

Talking past each other in the objectives that mattered wasn't working. _This requires a different approach_ , John reflected.

"My name is John-117, and I am a Spartan." Whatever Church was about to say, he quieted. "I was made to be a soldier from childhood, to serve and to sacrifice everything for humanity's survival."

"Yeah, I know. I read your file." Church contended.

"But what you – _who_ you don't know is the man who _lost_ so many of the things I hold dearest, including my last partner… because I wasn't good enough." John paused, surprised at the words moving past his own lips before continuing. "And now that I _know_ she could have been saved, I can't help but look at you and see my failure to save her."

"So? You're not that only one that's lost somebody." The bitter edge bit back into Church's voice, and John paused. _Maybe I should have read_ his _file_. John thought sarcastically, even though he had already done so.

"I know that you and I have lost something so similar, something others will never have. But we both need to move forward. And in order to do that, we have to rely on each other. I know we haven't started on the right foot, but I need us to start over." John's hand extended, and Church looked up at him. "Can you do that?"

"I think I can manage." Church admitted, his avatar not moving an inch.

"I need to be sure that we both know the other will keep them from harm." Chief pushed.

A warmth eased in to Church's voice, "Sure Chief, I got your back. And one other thing?"

"What?" John prepped himself for a smartass comment.

"Want to go over _all_ of those ancillary objectives?" Church cajoled as he raised his hand to meet John's.

John almost smirked.

Almost.

With a nigh imperceptible jolt, the Pelican dropped out of slipspace above the planet. Its surface a blend of tans, greens, and blues. The glowing orb beckoning travelers from the cold grip of space to land in its warm embrace.

"Welcome to Chorus! Enjoy our beautiful bloodstained vistas, orbiting illegal commsat, and the ability to make every passing ship disappear." John huffed at Church's sarcasm, but they had run through everything they knew a dozen times over. However, they couldn't afford to get cocky – it was time for their first objective.

"What are your scans showing?" Master Chief inquired.

"Nothing we didn't already know. Rocky planetoid in the Goldilocks zone, two oceans, greater land to water ratio than Earth, and only a half a dozen urban centers thanks to its late settlement." Church reiterated.

"Then we move to Objective One. Sync?"

"Sync." Church sighed as he prepped to open the Pelican's hatch.

The atmosphere was sucked out of the hold in an instant, but nothing else flew out.

Until Master Chief unlatched and jumped out that is.

The Spartan hurtled out of the Pelican as his course lit up his HUD, along with Church's voice through his comms.

"Alright, I've charted your course for you. I'm holding the Pelican steady, and might I say what a wonderful day for a stroll."

Master Chief did not dignify that with even an eyeroll and used his jump jet to make a minor adjustment to his flight path.

Just before he collided with the satellite, Chief's pack roared to life and slowed him down as he landed on the exterior of the metal frame. With a mighty clang his magboots activated, and Master Chief began to walk toward his objective.

Just as he was passing over the yellow image of a man holding a long pole inside a circle that emblazoned the hull, his comms crackled as a very familiar voice filled his ears. Just the voice though, not the burning sensation he was acquainted with. Although, John had noticed that the burning sensation from Church had soothed ever since their confrontation. It now felt like the intense warmth of standing close to a fire, rather than a painful burn.

"Gone splat yet?"

"Church."

"Yeah, yeah. Give me a break, okay? It's not like this is a combat mission. Now the port you're looking for looks kind of like a…well…" Church trailed off, clearly uncomfortable.

"A what?" Master Chief asserted.

"You know… like a _thing_."

 _That wasn't much of a description_. Chief thought.

"Have you ever gotten laid Chief? Ya know what I'm saying? Or do you swing the other way…?"

"…"

"What? I didn't design the fucking thing! It was probably some lonely nerd who–"

"Description _received_ , Church. Where on the satellite is it?" Chief insisted, trying to move on to more important matters.

"Well now that I can see the damn thing, I can tell you that it is in fact a Zephyr MK40 Commsat – so just head up to where the solar array connects to the main hull and you'll find the, uh, opening."

As the Chief crested the large joint of the solar array, he found the slot and grabbed the package off his back. He gently slotted the bug they had built during their journey into the satellite.

"Package delivered." Master Chief stated.

 _Jesus Christ, I can fucking hear Tucker saying it_. Church surmised.

"Uh, Rodger that Chief. Return course sent to your HUD." Church shook his head to clear the catch phrase echoing in his mind.

As Chief returned to the Pelican, Church started parsing through the brand-new torrent of data he was receiving courtesy of their new bug. There was a lot of chatter, but oddly on a much smaller range of frequencies than he expected on a planet at war. Hell, on _any_ planet for that matter.

"Hey, I'm not picking up many signals. It's like a ghost town by comms standards."

"How many frequencies are silent?"

"It's not that they're silent, it's that the channels are just _gone_. I can't pick anything up from them, not even the white noise of being ready to transmit." Church said. Before Master Chief could ask a follow up question though, Church raised his holographic hand. "Hang on, there's a transmission coming from the most heavily encrypted frequency, patching it through now."

"–vertheless, gentlemen. I gave you _very_ simple instructions." A distorted voice chastised the two black armored men in front of the screen. "You could not eliminate a group of simulation troopers? Should I set you a more simple task? Breathing, for instance."

The man with green highlights on his armor became agitated. "We did not know that Agent Carolina could camofl–"

"I hired you because you were the best. And you failed to account for a known threat like a rogue Freelancer in possession of an A.I.?" The disguised voice barked, the sonogram of it on the screen spiking from the harshness of the words.

"Well, if you hadn't spooked us with the threat of the goddamn Master Chief and we didn't have to run ragged to prepare for him – maybe we would have been more put together." The second, orange highlighted soldier sarcastically retorted.

"On that note, what have you done for that?" The voice asked flatly.

"We have prepped a landing zone far from the conflict, and we will try to get the Chief there. As per your orders, no ordinance has been prepped to take out his ship." The green soldier paused, clearly in a small moment of questioning the order. "Once he lands, Felix will take over and offer assistance as well as an escort to avoid the conflict."

"And I'll attract him with the distress beacon from the _Merope_ we planted, then keep him away and on a merry little goose chase until we can get our colorful problem solved. Which, we already have men on their tail – since you asked Control." The orange-accented soldier, Felix, asserted.

"Fine. Do not let your ego get the better of you this time Felix. Because if you manage to clue in the Chief and then somehow escape _him_ , you most certainly will not escape me." And with that, the feed cut.

"Could you unmask that voice?" The Chief asked as soon as the conversation ended.

"No, there were too many layers of distortion on it, and we weren't listening to the conversation for long enough for me to get through more than two of them before it ended."

"They're expecting us."

"Well, let's go give them a proper hello." Church quipped as he began to descend the Pelican into the atmosphere, heading towards a UNSC distress signal. As the Pelican glowed red-hot a sonic boom heralded their arrival planet-side.

A rocky, alpine landscape quickly came into view as Church slammed on the decelerators. The cloaked ship coasted between peaks and a small valley came into view. A valley filled with black armored men and vehicles, milling around and oblivious to the cloaked Pelican.

Church sighed internally and set the ship down in a cave set into one of the mountains surrounding the valley, on the side of the mountain facing away from the valley of course. Chief grabbed a BR85HB rifle from the supplies on board and stood at the ramp, waiting for Church to lower it. The moment it did, an all too familiar warmth flooded his senses. Before the ramp even finished lowering, Church's avatar appeared on his HUD.

"Alright I've charted a simple hike down to them as a warm up for the fight. Some light cardio is always good before strenuous activity you know."

"We don't know if we're going to fight them. They have orders to mislead us, not kill us. Let's see what we can learn before we have to kill them."

"Ah, you're no fun."

They came down the mountain, stealthier than a cat and came to a small ridge – barely 20 feet from the valley floor. The area was abuzz with men, and nearby a soldier clad in black with orange accents was there gesturing to a piece of artillery and flanked by two other men whose armor was purely black.

The Chief stood up silently, slung his rifle into a resting position, and waited. After a moment, several men yelped and soon all the soldiers were pointing their weapons at the Chief. Very quickly though, the man with orange accents lowered his weapon in near disbelief.

"Holy shit. It's you. I'd ask your name, but it's kinda obvious who you are. Lower your weapons men! So I'll cut to the chase, you got any supplies?" Felix asked 'sincerely'.

"You're robbing me." Chief stated, knowing full well that wasn't the case. But still, his hands tightened around his rifle.

"Heavens no! I just need to know because…" Felix paused, with Chief not moving an inch "well, you've stepped into a Civil War and we're the only sane ones left. Name's Felix, by the way."

When Master Chief didn't even take a step off the ledge, he continued, "See there's two main factions on this little backwater planet of ours. The Federal Army of Chorus and the New Republic. Both are crazy and have been systematically wiping each other out for years."

"Then who are you?" Chief asked, pausing between each word breathlessly.

"Like I said, we're the last sane people stranded on this God-forsaken rock. Once the war started, there was a small number of UNSC loyalists and businessmen stuck here. Any ship that tried to leave was shot down, and if any of us were seen, well this whole war arose from independence from the UNSC. So, we've stuck to the shadows, avoiding the fighting and scraping by with what we can get." He gestured to the men at his side, both holding old MA1s. "Luckily, we came into owning a piece of very shiny equipment recently. A UNSC distress beacon."

Chief finally jumped down and off the ledge, cracking the ground where he landed. Thanks to his trained ears, he could hear Felix began to speak incrementally faster.

"You see the Feds and the Rebels shot down a huge ship a while ago where one of our scouts could see it. We were hoping that it would have some supplies the two armies maybe missed. So, we moved in once they were done fighting and combing over it, and we came across the undamaged, unactivated beacon. We took it away, set up a safe LZ far away from the conflict and activated the beacon as a last hope for aid, and well this qualifies in my book!" Chief stopped in front him, towering over the man. "What, uh, brings the Savior of Humanity to our backwater planet anyway?" Felix stammered out.

"I'm here looking for a UNSC ship that crashed here two weeks ago. Sound familiar?"

"Well, not a lot of ships get through the skies here. Especially UNSC." Felix turned to the group of soldiers, "Alright men! We're going to assist the goddamn Master Chief with a rescue mission. Let's get ready to move out! Or should I say move back? We're going back to where we got our beacon, boys! Crash Site Bravo."

As the men moved to clear the LZ they set up, Chief walked up to Felix's side.

"We'll do what we can to help you, we're a small group but we're scrappy. Most importantly, we know our way around this planet and we can help you avoid the war. Not that you wouldn't be able to handle anything that come your way, huh big guy?" Felix extended his arm as if he was going to pat the imposing figure on the back but thought better of it. "So, uh, willing to join our merry band of misfits?"

Chief replied with a grunt and a nod, and soon the group was on their way. Leaving behind a cloaked Pelican, with all their supplies, hidden away.

They rode for hours off road through the back country, the landscape morphing from alpine snowy mountains to sandstone desert ridges instead. And for most of the journey, Church and Master Chief discussed the situation – unbeknownst to their travelling partners.

"Well they definitely are leading us, although this isn't much of a goose _chase_. My grandma could drive faster than this!"

"At least sticking with them might yield more intel. Anything showing up on scans?"

"Nothing on anything your armor's got, and the satellite we're piggybacking on has only passed over 3% of the planet since we planted our bug. So that map's gonna take a while…"

Suddenly, the caravan stopped. Felix jumped out of the lead vehicle and walk over to Chief's, which was third in the line.

"Alright, good news and bad news. The good news is, we've got a fairly large compound nearby. The bad news though, it was recently raided. By which side we're not sure, but I've got at least twelve folks holed up in a bunker there and we can cross our fingers they left some fuel."

And so, a couple hours later they finished traversing the road that spiraled up the cliff face until they reached the plateau. The facility encompassed most of the plateau, and some of it was collapsed.

"Wow, destroying your own property. Now that's commitment." Church quipped into Chief's ears only as they walked forward to assess the damage.

"It looks like they mostly got the living quarters. Small blessing, am I right?" Felix finished with a chuckle. He leaned over to one of his men and barely lowered his voice, "Not much of a conversationalist, is he?"

They entered the facility and managed to find the supply room, almost devoid of any weapons and ammunition but with a fair amount of fuel.

"Well luck is on our side! I'll have some of my guys refuel, and I will have two of them show you around. I'm going to go check the caves below for any of my men, it may be awhile before I'm back. Make yourself at home, we'll rest here a while before saddling up again." With that, Felix left, and Chief was left with two of the black-clad soldiers.

"There has to be a computer in this place, think you can ditch the babysitters?" Church impatiently requested the moment Felix left the room.

"We're in no rush, and we don't want to raise suspicions. We'll play this out, wait for them to get complacent." Chief stated, to which Church huffed in annoyance. Waiting was an _eternity_ for him.

After a visit to the mess hall, and some assisting with vehicle repair, Chief convinced his wardens to allow him to comb over the wreckage for anything useful. They conceded, and it was a simple matter of getting far enough from them and moving some pieces of rubble they couldn't before Master Chief was away from them and back into the building through where the wreckage met the still standing structure.

He snuck through the back halls they had not been through earlier, with no other men impeding them. Until they came upon a door with a guard in front of it.

"Well, that looks important. How are you going to handle this?" Church pressed, but before the Chief could respond, the guard's comms crackled.

"Michael could you come outside? The Chief went scrounging through the wreckage and he's past a chunk of rubble we need help lifting." Michael sighed, and responded he would be there soon. After a moment, the hallway was empty.

"Or we'll catch a break of our own creation. Guess that luck of yours is returning, huh?"

Chief didn't respond as he moved into the room. Stepping past the doorway and over a missing grate panel in the floor, he moved toward the large collection of screens on the far wall displaying video feed from around the base. The table in the center of the room had some bullet holes in it and the display on its surface was black and cracked.

Coming up to the large computer, Chief removed his A.I. chip and plugged Church in. Almost immediately, Church's avatar popped up.

"Woah there is a LOT to sift through here. Most of it confirming what our little bug told us." Church's arms and hands were moving constantly as if they were pushing through dense vines.

"What more do we know now?"

"Apparently, Charon's pirates are taking alien tech and merging it with human to create new weapons. They're designs also look pretty familiar." An image of a sleek black rifle with orange highlights appeared. "Other than taking an art class from the Didact, they also appear to be the ones spurring on this war. They're trying to wipe out the whole planet's population."

"So, the planet is free for the taking. Smart."

"But there's something weird about these files. It's like somebody has been through them before, I'm picking up that the files have been slightly rearranged. Not in any way noticeable to the _human_ eye mind you, but these prioritization markers…" Church paused. "They look kinda like mine?"

"Yours? But how w–"

"Hang on! I'm getting a transmission you're going to want to hear. Tracking coordinates as we speak."

" _Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. And boy, have I got some news for you."_ Felix's voice lit up one of the screens as a sonogram, and another screen lit up with a map of Chorus and a constantly shifting reticle.

" _Hey asshole we're not interested in whatever bullshit you're selling!_ " A second reticle appeared tracking this new voice.

" _But Tucker! In a miraculous, one-time only deal you've all been upgraded to first class on a one-way flight_ off _of Chorus._ " Felix let his retort hang for a breath. " _Are you interested now?_ "

" _What exactly are you playing at?_ " A feminine voice demanded on the second channel.

" _Whoa hoh! Easy here darlin'. I know this is all_ very _exciting, so I'm gonna hand the mic over to my partner here to tell you the details._ " And with that, Felix's voice was replaced by Locus'.

" _It's time you people understood the futility of your situation. We know where you're hiding. We know you are in possession of a single teleportation grenade. And we know that you hold the coordinates to a particularly valuable radio-jammer. Which is why my partner and I–_ " the first reticle locked on to a point on the coastline– " _are contacting you from its location. Make no mistake, you will not be interfering with today's events._ "

" _Says you! We're the champs of interfering with shit!_ " Tucker's voice cut in, allowing the second reticle to lock on to his location.

Locus continued, " _As we speak, the armies of Chorus are converging on the capitol. And the battle that ensues will leave no survivors. If your goal was to save these people, you have failed. But you now have an opportunity to save yourselves._ "

" _What do you mean?_ " A voice from Tucker's location asked, which Church instantly tagged as Agent Washington's.

" _Once the chumps at the capitol are all dead, you guys will be the only loose ends left. Now seeing as you've disabled our tracking device and have the means to teleport, mhmm anywhere in the world, this poses a somewhat annoying problem_." Felix chided, with Locus once again following him.

" _Which is why Control has offered to make a deal. If you choose to teleport back to your camp at Crash Site Bravo, you'll find a small ship waiting to take you home. But if you fail to arrive within the hour, we will find you. And we will kill you_."

" _I'm going to go ahead and call bullshit on that_." A voice labeled as Grif quipped.

" _Yeah! Why should we believe anything you say?_ " Simmons echoed.

" _See for yourself._ " Locus continued, pausing for a moment. " _It's fully functional and en route to the canyon now._ "

" _So you've got a ship. How are we supposed to know you won't shoot us the second we arrive?_ " Washington bit back.

" _Wellll, ya can't. But! If it makes you feel any better, this wasn't our idea. Trust me, I'm really hoping you're dumb enough to turn this offer down._ " Felix begged sarcastically.

" _Our client is a person of business. They understand that you want no part of this conflict, and they are willing to let you live. If you agree never to speak of our involvement here_." Locus explained.

" _And trust us, they'll know if ya do_." Felix cut in with a sinister promise.

" _Agent Washington. I have been ordered to offer you and your men a way out. And I never break an order. You have one hour to make your decision_." Locus finished.

" _Hope you make the right one!_ " Felix taunted to them, and the transmission cut. Master Chief had already retrieved Church's matrix, and stealthily exited the base after the second reticle locked. By the end of the transmission he was already halfway down the cliff. Once the transmission concluded, Church began speaking.

"Okay! I've already remotely-activated the Pelican to pick us up, it should stealth on auto-pilot. I hope you're going for the jammer?"

"Should stealth?" Chief asked, now at the base of the cliff and already heading toward the jammer.

"Yeah well, it's not 100% consistent. Not that we have time to worry about that when we have to get across a continent in an hour. I know the Reds and Blues are way closer to us, but are they _really_ stupid enough to turn down living for some heroics that'll probably kill them?"

Church chuckled.

"You bet your ass they are."

* * *

 **Well there you have it! I hope you all enjoyed, please comment and review! I look forward to your responses, and if you are ever curious where a chapter is in the pipeline know that I have a tumblr (same as my account name: SentinelStorm) where you can get updates as progress is made. Updates should hopefully be more regular than they have been now that I'm am back on the aforementioned horse.**

 **I'm always up to talk about stuff, even if it might take me a day to respond – life is crazy! Now I will see you all later and have a SPOOOOKY month! SentinelStorm signing off.**

 **Stand Against the Storm!**


	9. Chapter 9

**MERRY Christmas and other assorted winter festivities! As promised, another chapter to finish out 2018. This next year will be one of adventure! Action! Multiple chapters! A minor announcement:**

 **I am probably not going to update my tumblr anymore, what with the purge and also I was so sporadic and not at all keeping with them that I don't really have a use for it. But hey, if you want to talk to me - there's always PMs. I am deeply humbled and moved that you all loved my first chapter, thank all of you SO MUCH from the bottom of my heart for your words. Here's to hoping you enjoy the second.**

* * *

The mountaintop was calm and quiet, a tiny beetle rested on a blade of grass. As it crawled up the blade it came to the drop of dew it saw earlier and took the gentlest of sips. Then it, along with the patch of meadow, were incinerated as an invisible object rushed past the peak, barely above the surface.

Inside the rocketing vehicle, a man in a suit of armor was busy sifting through crates of weaponry and pulling out various pieces of equipment.

"Okay, good news and bad news." Church's voice called out through the interior speakers.

"Bad News." Chief replied without hesitation.

"That communications jammer is a pretty serious piece of equipment. It's blocking everything but short-range comms the closer we get, so close that I'm not going to be able to raise Tucker and the others unless we're right next to them."

"How long for you break through it?" Chief knew by now that with Church it was just a matter of time.

"Well… between pushing the thrusters to their limits AND keeping stealth, running exhaustive scans, searching for the guys, and the strength of the jammer – I'm not gonna be able to break the jammer until I get a physical connection."

"At which point it might be too late. Hmmm, and the good news?" He said tilting his head upwards as he finished loading his pistol.

"We're here. I'm taking us up slightly to get a good overhead view and see if I can find those dipshits on scans." As Church finished his statement, John could feel the Pelican pitch upward a few degrees and ascend. They stopped, and a holographic projection of the terrain below them lit up and seemingly filled the open room as it hovered above the floor.

"Okay, I'm projecting my readout through your helmet and we've got a problem." The area lit up with black, red, and blue figures. "Clearly the Reds and Blues must have stuck with Wash, because they're laying a pretty damn good ambush on Felix and Locus." Church said while gesturing to the arrayed red and blue figures that were arrayed in varying positions around the seven black figures hugging the jammer's central tower. "Unfortunately, they set a trap too." A wide circle of black holograms vastly spread out around the jammer. "Charon's guys are spread out in a mile-wide perimeter around the jammer with about a dozen guys super spread out. They must intend to close the circle once the hour's up and catch the guys, who they rightfully assumed are gonna try and stop them."

"How much time is left on the clock?"

"Eh…ten minutes." And Church collapsed the virtual map, replacing it with a small timer in the top right of the Chief's HUD. "So now what?"

"Now, we carry out the mission." Master Chief stated as the Pelican descended.

* * *

As Isaac sat in his concealed spot behind some foliage and under a rocky outcropping, he couldn't help but let his mind wander.

 _Wonder if those idiots took the deal._

He wasn't afraid to let go a little, after all if they did pop up he could handle them. They were just sim troopers after all.

 _But they did still get Zachary_ … After that thought nagged him, Isaac sat up a little straighter. The wind briefly shifted, and for only a moment there was a minute tremor. That wasn't all that unusual, the jammer did make storms, but the tremor…

 _Was that a lightning strike?_ Isaac stood up and cloaked himself. Better to be safe than sorry. As he emerged from his hiding place he began to examine the area with his weapon raised.

 _They're not smart enough to set a trap, right? Or at least, a good one that is._ His thoughts began to gain a slight tremble as he moved to go to the top of the outcrop. Once he reached the top and surveyed the rough road below, he relaxed.

 _No one on their way. I just can't wait for tomorrow, this will finally all be over, and I get my fat check._ His shoulders slumped as his cloak dropped, momentarily out of charge. Isaac sighed as he turned around to return to his hiding spot, when he bumped into a solid object. Before he could even finish looking up at what it was, everything went black.

* * *

"One down, nine to go. Now let's get a look at what you guys are _really_ packing." Church said as Master Chief stood over the crumpled soldier.

"Make it quick."

"Scan's already done, let's move to the next target and I'll fill you in along the way." As John began to easily traverse the terrain, Church began filling him in. "Firstly, he's out, but I'm still getting a life signature from him. What the fuck Chief? I thought we were in the business of killing bad guys, not sending them home with a headache after a nice nap." Church berated.

"The _tech_ , Church."

"Fine, whatever." Church let the irritation bleed into his voice.

 _No, not irritation – antsiness_. Chief observed.

"Wow, these guys are stacked with tech. The two big pieces are his gun and his cloak." Small schematics appeared in view. "The cloak is a derivative of the Freelancer armor panels, but it's got some of the circuitry of the Covenant's cloaking too. So it's not photo-reflective panels, but the unit supplies the plates with an energy that allows them to bend light."

"Covenant and UNSC tech fused together. And the gun?"

"Designed to disintegrate, but like really torturously. It's like… have you seen that really old superhero movie?" Chief did not respond. "Pfft. Go figure you haven't. Whatever, basically it turns them to ash. Now, heads up. Our next guy is hiding riiiiight there." Church highlighted the pirate as they came into view. Not direct view, as they were concealed similarly to their unconscious comrade – but none of them would be able to hide since Church had already pegged them all on the sensors, especially the heat sensors.

The moment the figure was highlighted, the Chief switched gears on a dime. He dropped to a crouch, pulling his suppressed MA5B rifle from his back. This target wasn't as nice as the last one, they weren't leaving their cover.

The mercenary was lying flat at the top of a rock face and cloaked, but that wouldn't spare them from Church's eyes. John took a small breath in, that infinitesimal moment before pulling the trigger.

 _Shoot to incapacitate_. He chanted to himself.

He fired.

As the weapon silently cast its dangerous projectile into the world, its aim true, the armored merc went down.

"Next target is this way." Church grumbled as he added the highlighted path to the HUD.

 _He must actually care about them if he's this worried._ John noted as he felt the implant heat up for the first time since the Pelican.

The third mercenary was almost in view when the timer hit five minutes. But then Church cut in, "Shit! They've started moving!" Chief paused his hike.

"Who? The mercenaries?"

"No! Those fucking _idiots_ are closing their trap!" As if he thought it would increase Chief's pace, Church made the timer start flashing as it continued to count down. "Move faster! Before the dipshits get themselves killed!" Church yelled as his voice filled with desperation, and John's implant grew hotter.

Chief didn't bother answering him as he lined up the shot on the third target. Just after he fired though, the man moved.

"FUCK! The extra pirates are closing their trap! Shit! Shit! SHIT!" With each curse, the pain radiating from his matrix rose a substantial degree. "Alright, the pirates will converge on the main road entry to the compound before they spread out again. Book it and we can cut them off!"

Master Chief swiveled and began sprinting for the waypoint. With each step Church's matrix let loose a burst of scalding pain, but Chief could not let that distract him. Objective first. Pain later.

Chief slid in front of the large carved stone archway that marked the entry, with all the roads converging here a dusty simulacrum of a courtyard existed. Just as Chief was about to step behind the arch to conceal himself, the first of the pirates arrived – the one he had just missed moments ago in fact.

"HOLY SHIT!" The mercenary screamed as he raised his weapon and fired a burst of orange bolts at the Chief.

He rolled behind the archway, barely avoiding the blasts as he pulled a grenade and loosed it.

It exploded the pirate was blown back, but still standing after he raised his hard-light shield just in time. As the man's body thudded against the canyon wall, three more pirates charged into the scene – stumbling as they slowed themselves from their run in and raising their shields in anticipation of another explosion.

 _Just like Jackals_. The thought ran through Chief's head faster than his sprint forward across the dusty dirt. Weaving in between their sloppy shots, he leapt over their shields and landed behind the middle man of the trio. He raised his fist and punched the man square in the back, sending him flying forward.

The two remaining men quickly pulled out their knives as their comrade was flung away and engaged the Chief simultaneously as he turned to face the woman on his right.

He ducked as the one behind him went for a strike to the head while extending his right leg out to both kick that pirate's leg out from under him and dodge the strike from the merc in front of him.

As the pirate behind him crumpled momentarily, he motioned to strike her with his fist. She jumped back, but his fist caught her still extended knife arm in the wrist.

As she dropped the knife and Master Chief knocked her out with a blow to the head, Church shouted in his ear "Fuck, here's the rest of them!" as the A.I. raised his bubble shield and the Promethean drone at the same time.

The woman was pushed backwards, and numerous orange projectiles filled the air as the pirates lit up the shield with rounds while the drone fired right back – forcing the mercs to take cover while one of them was torn apart.

Before John could dwell on that, the shield dropped as his HUD lit up with paths Church was suggesting as he screamed them in his ears. Master Chief ignored the rattled voice in his ears as he dove back for cover while the drone covered his momentary escape.

He raised his MA5B rifle as he whipped around the corner of the arch.

The mercenaries had formed a line of shields while exchanging fire with the drone. One of them was pulling a M41 rocket launcher off their back as their comrades provided them cover and another soldier began to aim at the re-exposed Chief.

He aimed and fired below the shield at the exposed shins of the one aiming at him as the drone flew over the shields and ripped another pirate to shreds. However, this left it perfectly exposed to the pirates aim and a rocket blew the construct into fragments that disappeared as they were created in kaleidoscope of oranges.

"The drone is gonna need at least two minutes to reconstitute!" Before Church could continue, another rocket streaked through the arch and detonated. Church raised the shield for a fraction of a second to negate the shockwave, then yelled "Quick! While he's reloading!"

"Wait." Chief held his position, "Tell me when he's about to pull the trigger."

After a moment of silence, Church responded "Now!"

As Chief leapt from cover to grab the rocket, he ordered "Partial Shield along flight path!"

Before Church could quibble, Chief grasped the projectile – pivoting with it towards the attackers. Halfway through his turn, a horizontal line of the shield's hexagonal panels flared into existence. It traced the same curve Chief started on, and then the Chief let go once it appeared.

The rocket left his hand but continued along the turn as it skidded on the shield. It exited the curve and shot back towards its launcher and his compatriots. The four standing mercenaries turned to scatter but did not get very far as the explosive detonated where they last stood.

They all went flying, however the two pirates who were the ends of the four-man line managed to land on their feet. As they steadied themselves, one of them had landed near the man Chief had broken the leg of earlier – who now began to shakily regain his footing as his biofoam set to work.

Just as Chief was about to unleash a return salvo, a massive explosion occurred from the facility behind them. Quickly following that, static and feedback tore through his speakers – and from the way the mercs were clutching their helmets, they were too.

"That was all the local channels being restored! The jammer must have gone down!" Church exalted, but before he could continue Chief fired at the hobbling man and caught him in the side. As he went down, a voice came over the radios.

" _Once the Feds and Rebels kill each other, I don't know what I'm gonna do!_ " Felix's voice rang out. " _I mean, we've been playing these guys for_ years _._ " The black-clad figures at the other side of the battlefield hesitated at the sound of their commander's voice and hunkered behind what little cover they found.

Chief prepared for another sprint to go reengage them, when a new voice responded to Felix on the radio – one that caused him to pause too. " _How did you convince Kimball to go to the Capitol?_ " Tucker strained out.

"He's hurt!" Before Chief could ask Church how he could tell, the heat of his implant dissipated instantaneously.

"Church?! Dammit!" Chief exclaimed. _He must be able to move again now that the jammer is down_. Chief thought to himself. In the instant he took to muse however, something landed a few yards away.

The explosion took the Chief off guard as he was thrown to the ground; luckily, he wasn't very damaged and his Mark VI armor automatically dispensed biofoam to assist. This momentary lapse in action though provided the remaining mercs to finally advance on the Chief.

As he hauled himself upright, he raised his pistol and fired on the mercenary that just poked out around the rock face. The woman fell to the ground, a perfect hole in her visor.

 _Dammit!_ Chief was going to tear Alpha a new one for making him do this. Once this was over, that is. He pulled himself to his feet and stumbled.

He looked down at his leg to see a shard of metal sticking out of the joint.

 _Looks like I didn't escape that explosion undamaged after all._

As he limped back to out to the corner, pistol raised, he mentally counted the enemies – now enemy – remaining.

Just as he reached the junction, he all but collided with the last target. The pirate was startled, and before he could react Chief slammed his gun into the man's helmet. The man did not go down, and he slammed his body into Master Chief – forcing them both to the ground as Chief's leg buckled underneath the added weight.

Once in the dirt, the Chief rolled them further into the clearing and used his superior weight to pin the smaller man. Master Chief went to punch the mercenary as the man raised his arms defensively. Chief's fist clanged against the armguards of the pirate as the pirate punched right back into his gut.

Chief did not even feel the weak blow and took advantage of the opening to punch the merc's helmet clean off. He mechanically raised his fist for another strike when he saw the man's face.

Delirious and bloodied, the mercenary shakily tried to raise his arms to protect himself. John lowered his arm as the blood oozed from the beaten man's nose. He swiftly knocked the merc unconscious with as light a hit as he could manage, and then stood up.

 _I almost did it_. John reflected.

"Church…" He growled as he stumbled forward, into the complex and toward the jammer as the conversation between Felix and Tucker continued streaming over the radio.

"– _all with the belief that their sacrifice might actually mean something_." Felix stated as the transmission ended, and John limped back through the archway, the nanobots finally starting to heal the damage.

* * *

The trip was supposed to take a week and a half from when Blue Team departed Earth to reach the distant colony on the edge of ex-Covenant space, and Kelly was itching to get off the ship. Lord Hood had said this was a matter of urgency, and they all wished to move as quickly as possible.

They were fairly withdrawn for the whole trip, sticking only to their bunks, the training room, and as little time in the mess hall as they could manage. The three members of Blue Team reviewed the mission again and again, memorizing it and all ancillary objectives word for word. As they had been trained.

"We're almost there, three more days in slipspace." Linda lamented from her bunk. Fred rolled his eyes at the thought of having to wait even one more day with Kelly this tightly wound. She was tearing through sparring partners left and right, something had her on edge.

 _What in this mission has gotten her so wound up? She might do some permanent damage to someone. Unless…_ Fred thought, _we burn some of that energy off._

Fred rolled off the upper bunk and stretched his arms once Kelly entered the room, after having been off in the ship doing who knows what.

"Come on, let's head to the ops center. I want to review that mission info one more time." He announced to his teammates. They acted wordlessly as they all armored up and walked to the ops center.

They did not pass many crew members on their way there, as it was night according to ship time. The few they did see though tried to sneak glances at them once they passed in the hall, marveling at the best of humanity as they walked by. The team finally came to their stop and quickly stowed away behind its metal door. They moved about the room, its walls covered in blank screens, and settled around the central holo-table, removing their helmets now that they were alone.

"Now," Fred started as he pulled up the files on the table, "we know that the subject, Junior, is an ambassador between Sanghelios and Earth along with his father Lavernius Tucker." Two pictures materialized above the table, one of a young Sangheili and another of a human in aqua armor.

"Seeing as Lavernius has gone missing, this could mean potential danger for his son as the same parties could be at work to make him disappear as well. The young boy is under guard by two Elites at any given time, but Lord Hood fears that might not be enough if there are larger bodies conspiring."

"We're there to ensure the child's safety, top suspects out for the kid are pirates, rogue Sangheili factions, and warmongers..." they spent the next three hours reviewing every objective and detail, trying to see if they could discern who they were up against. But, like the start of the meeting, they were left will a short list of likely suspects and nothing concrete. As Kelly concluded, Fred put on his helmet – starting for the door wordlessly.

"Where are you going?" Kelly questioned curiously.

"To the training room." He said as he tossed her her helmet. "Now are you two coming with?" He finished with a hidden smile.

* * *

 _Fuck. He's hurt. I never should have left them._ Church's thoughts raced at a breakneck pace, even from his skewed perspective of time.

 _This is my fault. Those idiots had to get themselves stranded in the only place worse than Covenant deep space._ He jumped from the Chief the second he got the ping off Tucker's injury warning.

 _I can't be too late. I move at fucking light speed, it isn't physically possible for him to die that fast._ Even with the jammer down, he could not move fully unimpeded. Church jumped from console to console across the compound, finally landing on Tucker after what felt like a hundred-yard sprint to him.

In reality it had taken less than a millisecond, but the lingering memories of a physical body made him feel an imaginary chest constricting in pain from the 'exertion'.

The first thing he did once he entered Tucker's armor was run a full diagnostic. It was remarkably easy, many of his usual shortcuts were there, but in his panicked state he paid it no mind.

The diagnostic was not as in depth as he would like, this was old Freelancer armor and he was used to working with top of the line stuff these days. As he extrapolated on the data, he relaxed. Tucker had been stabbed in the gut, but that was fine. He'd just boot up the healing unit and – _FUCK!_ He screamed internally.

 _Tucker doesn't have any equipment, the only thing he has is this dumb fucking camera!_ Church ran through the options and realized that Tucker could still pull through with 70% survival likelihood. He could up that if he could signal a medic…

For the first time since jumping to Tucker, Church took stock of their surroundings. Tucker was on his knees but staying upright as he stared down Felix. Church figured out who stabbed Tucker form the still-red knife and realized through a vibration that Tucker was actually saying something. Church allowed his perception of time to speed up.

"–u speechless? That's a first." Tucker noted sarcastically. As Felix began to tremble with rage, the mercenary raised his pistol.

"You. You're DEAD." But before Church even began analyzing a way to shut down Felix, a laser sight lit up the side of the merc's helmet.

"I wouldn't, if I were you." A woman's voice retorted. Tucker and Felix both turned to look up at the person who spoke, and Church saw a group of familiar faces lined up on the ledge – all pointing their weapons at Felix. Church easily recognized the majority of Red Team and Caboose, although he was worried that Caboose was pointing his weapon in their general direction, but the woman who spoke he didn't know.

 _This must be Agent Carolina_ , Church recalled seeing her in the group's celebratory shot after taking down the Director.

Sarge grunted and said "You know, those sticky grenades kick like a mule. But I hear these newfangled laser blasters are _quite_ lethal." He finished smugly as Caboose began looking around and pointing his gun wildly.

Felix raised a hard light shield like the other mercenaries outside had to put some protection between himself and the arrayed weapons above him.

 _Finally! Something I can mess with!_ Church thought as he materialized a small hologram. But before he jumped, two things happened at once. The first was the man who was called 'Locus' uncloaking between Tucker and Felix.

And the second was Tucker remarking to Church, "Wow, you got back fast." As his hologram materialized.

As Locus and Felix said something to each other, Church responded to Tucker. "What the fuck do you mean? I've been gone for three fucking years!" Church was frankly a little hurt, had they not really noticed he was gone?

But before Tucker could do anything beyond tilting his head in confusion, Locus spoke up to address all present while pulling out a strange cube.

"Let me assure you all: This is not over." And then Locus and Felix disappeared in a flash of light. As it flashed, Tucker collapsed to the ground – dropping his sword and gun.

"Tucker? _Tucker_!" Church yelled. "Is there a medic?!"

"Out of the way! Coming through!" Said a different woman in white and purple armor as she pushed past the rest of the Reds and Blues, sans Washington, who had come down to ground level after the two pirates had teleported.

"Is he going to be okay?" In an extremely rare instance, Church actually let his worry shine through his comment openly.

"He's going to be fine, Church. Now can you tell me how much blood he's lost?" She asked cheerily.

"Well, this armor's pretty shitty – but based off my calculations he's lost about a pint of blood." He said as he quickly estimated based off what little data the armor gave him and the small pool of blood on the ground. As the unknown woman began to work on stitching up Tucker as best she could with her limited materials, Carolina walked up.

"Don't worry Doctor Grey, we just radioed Kimball with our coordinates. Evac should be here soon." She glanced over Tucker and locked gazes with Church. "Is he gonna pull through?"

Church and Emily answered simultaneously "Looks like it ./!" with their enthusiasm varying respectively.

"So…" Church began as he looked at the Red Team, "How have you guys been?" He asked as his avatar nervously patted his legs and bounced on his heels.

"We vanquished our enemies through the glory of my superior tactics!" Sarge asserted as he brandished his beloved shotgun. The doctor was busy with Tucker, but Carolina turned to face the rest of the group when Sarge began speaking.

"You just punched me! _Repeatedly!_ " Grif whined.

"Ah, quit being such a baby." Sarge shrugged as he lowered his trusty weapon back into a resting position. It looked like Simmons was about to say something, but a flash of light by Carolina coalesced into a humanoid shape and caught everyone's attention. Even the doctor's once it began to speak.

"Seriously Tucker?! I leave for _one goddamn minute_ , but since the radio jammer is down you redownload _all_ your 'home movies'?!" The newly formed, second, light blue soldier ranted as he faced the Reds with his back to Tucker. "I mean seriously, there was no space for me, I had to go to Carolina!"

"Uhhhh… Church?" Carolina began, but she was quickly cut off by the newer hologram.

"Yeah, yeah I know. It took me way too fucking long to do that, but I had to still fight through the last of the encryptions while I broadcasted the message _and_ edit it on the fly for maximum embarrassment. I'll have to show you guys the final cut later, it was _hilarious_." The second Church said as he triumphantly put his hands on his hips. The Reds and Caboose couldn't help but keep glancing between the two holograms.

"Oh _great_ , now there's two of them." Grif lamented as the rest of everyone was stunned silent.

"Two of what?" The newer hologram asked as he slowly turned around to come face to face with the other hologram.

The silence hung for a solid second before a cheerful voice cut it.

Caboose cheered in near disbelief, "Two Churches?! This is the BEST. DAY. EVER!"

* * *

The telecommunicator began ringing.

"Admiral, are you going to answer?" Black Box stressed, clearly just wanting the annoying chime to end. She too was lamenting having to answer, after seeing the caller's identity. She let it ring up until the precipice of becoming a missed call, and begrudgingly answered.

"Admiral Osman."

"Chairman Hargrove. To what do I owe the pleasure." She stated flatly.

"We have a problem, one that _you_ were unable to prevent being sent my way."

"Oh? Your man not as good a liar as you thought?" She sneered.

"Even an extremely capable soldier is still no match to an individual that has been through the rigors of ONI training." He clasped his hands together and pointed at her with his joined index fingers. "Your little off-the-leash attack dog saw right through our operation and managed to take down the veil of secrecy I so _carefully_ constructed with years of effort within hours of being planet side." He paused, as if he thought that he could guilt trip or intimidate her.

 _He always defaults to condescending when he's angry._ She noted mentally. _Wonder what happened to piss him off this badly?_ She did not have to wait long, as the fuming Chairman could not resist laying out the situation.

"The Master Chief managed to take down our main atmospheric communications jammer and transmitted a message that halted the civil war mere hours before its conclusion." His face grew redder as he drew a steely breath. "Now I must ask… how do you expect me to fight an entire planet and the best soldier mankind has ever produced, with some paltry three dozen men – _Miss_ Osman?" He ended, slamming his hands on the desk.

His iron gaze was relentless, but that wasn't what motivated her to answer. It was the knowledge that I she did not appease him, he would call again, and again, and _again_ until she did.

"There's a prison ship, the UNSC _Tartarus_ in the next sector over. On board are over two hundred prisoners that no one gives a damn about, manned by a skeleton crew. Would that be sufficient?" She finished sharply.

The Chairman sat there for but a moment, the magnitude of what she was offering him sinking in. He straightened up and regained his usual, placid composure and spoke.

"That will be more than sufficient, Admiral. Thank you for your continued contribution." And with that, he cut the connection.

"I thought he'd never hang up." Black Box remarked.

"Hmm, yes. How much do you think that will slow 117?"

"No more than three days, assuming they are all properly equipped. Then again, John won't like fighting alongside that rabble." The cube surmised.

"That seems optimistic, how unlike you BB. No matter, even if 117 cleans up that mess quickly – it will be sufficient for our _special projects_ to come online." She observed, striding to the elevator. "And pitting them against humanity's greatest soldier will certainly be more than enough to stop even him."

As the Admiral and Black Box came to a stop on the catwalk, she crossed her arms behind herself with pride. She permitted herself to smile as the various machines and equipment were being given their final once-overs.

She walked down to the floor, allowing herself the small luxury to view them up close. She passed machine after machine with but a cursory glance and nod to the technicians, until briskly stopping in front of her personal favorite.

She let her fingers glide over the dark metal and reflected on the amount of work it took to get this piece operational. Now it would finally reach it's potential. She permitted herself one final smirk as she stared into the reflective visor.

"You and your pet project. I don't know why you insist on sending it out." Black Box chided.

"Because it's ready." She said coolly.

And with that, the technicians concluded their examination. Tomorrow, these weapons will be shipped out.

 _It's a shame that you're their target John. But you brought this on yourself._

* * *

 ** **And with that, I wish you all a Happy Holidays and especially good fortune for your 2019! Please keep those** **reviews** **a-coming, thanks so much for those of you who have left** **likes** **and favorited! Reme** **m** **ber that whatever challenges this new year may bring, you must –****

 **Stand Against the Storm!**


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